THE  FAR  EAST 
TODAY 


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OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

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Blue  Watees  and  Green 


AND 


THE  FAE  EAST  TODAY. 


BY 

F.  DUMONT  SMITH. 


CRANE  &  COMPANY, 

ToPEKA,  Kansas. 

1907. 


Copyright  1907,  by  F.  Dumont  Smith, 
Kinsley,  Kansas. 


MOSOTTrXD    ASB   F«I1.T«D   »T 

CSAXK  i COHrAKT, 

TOr£tA. 


ST47b 


"  I  stand  upon  the  summit  of  my  life : 
Behind,  the  camp,  the  court,  the  field,  the  grove, 
The  battle  and  the  burden ;  vast  afar 
Beyond  these  weary  ways,  behold  the  Sea. 
The  sea,  o'erswept  by  clouds  and  winds  and  wings. 
By  thoughts  and  wishes  manifold ;   whose  breath 
Is  freshness  and  whose  mighty  pulse  is  peace. 

"  Palter  no  question  of  the  horizon  dim — 
Cut  loose  the  bark :   such  voyage  is  itself  a  rest. 
Majestic  motion,  unimpeded  scope, 
A  widening  heaven,  current  without  care. 
Eternity:  deliverance,  promise,  course; 
Time-tired  souls  salute  thee  from  the  shore." 


[31 


1522532 


COI^TEl^rTS. 


PAGE 

Thalassa, 3 

On  the  Pacific, 7-21 

Honolulu, 22-39 

Japan, 40_69 

Manila, 70-109 

Hong  Kong, 110-129 

Canton, 130-150 

Macao, 151-173 

Shanghai, .        .  174-204 

Japan  (continued), 205-289 

Conclusion, 290-293 


Fifty  Illustrations. 
Four  Drawings  by  Albert  T.  Reid, 


THE  FAE  EAST  TODAY. 


ON    THE     PACIFIC. 

I  am  sure  that  not  one  of  Xenophon's  Ten  Thou- 
sand, when  they  stood  upon  the  last  hill  and  saw  the 
Mge&n,  felt  more  joy  than  I  when  I  saw  the  Pacific 
through  the  Golden  Gate  and  felt  once  more  the  long 
uplift  and  steady  roll  of  the  mile-long  swell. 

To  them  the  blue  water  meant  home.  To  me  it 
means  peace — peace  and  rest.  Peace  from  troubling 
and  vexation.  Rest  from  harassing,  petty  cares; 
rest  from  strenuous  labor ;  rest  from  the  task  of  Sisy- 
phus, the  daily  rolling  of  the  stone  uphill  each  day  re- 
peated. Balm  and  healing  in  the  sweet  sea- wind  j 
rest  and  healing  for  tired  souls  and  worn-out  nerves. 

The  sullen  trade-wind  was  desolating  San  Fran- 
cisco with  its  daily  plague  of  dust,  cold  fog  and  bitter 
keenness  when  we  crossed  the  chaos  that  once  was 
a  city,  to  the  Pacific  mail  dock.    Our  ship  is  the  "  Nip- 

[7] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

pon  Maru,"  of  the  Toyo  Risen  Kaisha,  that  is,  the 
Oriental  Steamship  Company.  Everyone  knows  that 
Nippon  is  the  native  name  for  Japan,  and  Maru  is 
ship.  This  subsidized  Japanese  Une  has  two  other 
ships,  the  "Hong  Kong  Maru"  and  the  "America 
Maru."  Two  more  are  building,  to  be  ready  this 
fall, — 18,000-ton  leviathans,  and  then  the  "Nippon" 
will  go  on  the  South-American  line,  then  to  be  started. 
The  captain  is  an  Englishman,  forty-eight  years  a 
master  mariner.  The  doctor,  purser,  freight  clerk, 
head  steward,  stewardess,  are  Americans.  All  else 
are  Japs  and  Chinese.  The  other  officers,  navigators, 
engineer's  staff,  coal-passers,  and  sailors,  are  all  Japs. 
The  stewards,  cabin-boys  and  waiters  are  all  Chinese. 
Our  boy  is  a  Cantonese,  who  are  said  to  be  the  best 
of  the  Chinese  servants,  and  Ah  Wing  is  as  near  per- 
fection as  it  is  given  to  mortal  man  to  be.  Tall, 
slender,  his  face  the  color  of  old  ivory,  he  wears  an 
expression  of  dignified  cheerfulness,  courtesy  and 
goodness;  soft-footed,  tireless,  kindly  and  consider- 
ate, Ah  Wing  deserves  a  better  pen  than  mine  to  tell 
of  his  virtues.  His  English  vocabulary  is  limited, 
but  suffices.  "Catchee"  and  "makee"  are  his  prin- 
cipal verbs,  and  serve  all  purposes.     "Catchee"  is 

[8] 


ON    THE    PACIFIC 


to  get,  find,  bring,  and  twenty  other  things.  "  Makee" 
is  to  do,  perform,  furnish,  and  so  on. 

This  morning  I  said:  "Ah  Wing,  where  are  my 
coat-hangerF?" 

"Me  catchee  hhn." 

He  looked  and  looked,  and  finally  said  sorrowfully, 
"No  can  catchee." 

Then  suddenly  he  remembered.  "Missee  makee 
him." 

F.  had  used  it. 

"Ah  Wing,  ask  the  purser  to  send  me  some  pen- 
cils." 

"Allitee;   me  catchee  him." 

Returned.  "Makee  sharp,"  and  there  were  my 
pencils,  beautifully  pointed. 

The  ladies  always  take  breakfast  in  bed,  and  Ah 
Wing  always  tempts  them  with  the  best  the  table 
affords. 

" Stlawbellies  bottom  side.  You  like  stlawbellies ? " 
And  the  fruit  appears  with  crushed  ice  and  pulverized 
sugar  so  served  that  it  tempts  even  a  seasick  stom- 
ach. 

Ah  Wing  knows  just  how  malted  milk  should  be 
served;   he  knows  when  to  be  silent.    He  can  smile 

[9] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

without  moving  a  muscle.  Only  a  Chinaman  can 
do  that.  Few  ladies  in  Kansas  keep  their  houses  as 
he  keeps  our  suite. 

In  the  morning  he  wears  a  long  blue  cotton  gown 
to  his  heels,  and  his  glossy  queue  is  wrapped  about  his 
head.  But  at  the  table — for  he  waits  on  the  table, 
too — he  appears  in  spotless  white  and  his  queue  hangs 
to  his  waist,  the  pride  of  his  heart,  the  emblem  of  his 
race,  sanctified  by  his  religion,  without  which  he 
would  be  disgraced. 

The  routine  of  the  ship  is  much  the  same  as  on  the 
Atlantic.  At  7 :  30  the  boy  serves  coffee  and  toast  in 
your  room;  at  8:30,  breakfast;  at  11:00,  bouillon 
and  crackers;  lunch  at  1:00;  tea  at  4:00;  and 
dinner  at  7 :  00 ;  sandwiches  and  the  like  in  the  smok- 
ing-room all  the  time. 

There  are  seven  meals  a  day  if  you  take  them  all. 
However,  they  are  not  served  by  the  hours,  but  by 
the  "bells."  The  clockwork  regularity  of  the  ship's 
housekeeping  is  measured  by  a  sweet-toned  bell  on 
the  forward  deck,  struck  every  half-hour.  Eight 
A.  M.  is  eight  bells.  Then  it  starts  with  one  bell  for 
8 :  30,  two  bells  for  9  o'clock,  and  an  additional  bell 
for  each  half-hour  until  eight  bells  is  again  reached, 

[10] 


ON    THE    PACIFIC. 

at  noon.  Again,  they  start  with  one  bell  until  4 
o'clock,  when  eight  bells  is  again  reached.  The  origin 
of  the  custom  is  lost  in  antiquity.  But  like  most 
sea  customs,  it  never  changes.  That  is  a  curious 
thing.  The  conservatism  of  seafaring  men  is  the 
cause  of  it.  The  vast  change  from  sail  to  steam  has 
changed  marine  nomenclature  and  usage  but  little — 
just  added  some  new  occupations  and  terms  for  them. 

In  front  of  my  window  some  Jap  sailors  on  the  for- 
ward deck  are  making  a  new  awning,  and  making 
it  just  as  the  sailors  of  Columbus  made  a  sail  four 
hundred  years  ago.  They  squat  on  the  sail  and  push 
the  needle  through  with  a  leather  palm-guard  instead 
of  a  thimble. 

Every  sailor  wears  a  sheath-knife  at  the  back  of 
his  belt,  so  that  a  lashing  may  be  cut  quickly  to  loosen 
the  boat  or  let  a  sail  go.  There  is  often  no  time  to 
open  a  pocket-knife.  Also,  it  is  handy  in  a  scrap. 
We  still  have  "labboard"  and  "stabboard"  watches, 
and  the  two  dog  watches,  as  they  have  been  denom- 
inated from  time  immemorial, — the  former  two  of 
eight  hours  each,  the  latter  four  each. 

Sailor-men  are  like  the  English:  they  can  adopt  a 
new  thing,  but  they  will  never  do  an  old  thing  a  new 

[111 


THE    FAR    EAST^TODAY. 

way.  Thus,  the  EngHsh  adopted  the  telephone  and 
other  Yankee  inventions  quickly,  but  they  will  con- 
tinue their  abominable  baggage  system  till  the  end 
of  time.  The  London  &  Northwestern  tried  to  in- 
troduce our  system  of  checking  baggage.  They  even 
went  further.  They  offered  to  call  for  your  trunk  in 
London,  for  instance,  and  deliver  it  to  your  address 
in  Edinburgh  for  the  small  sum  of  a  shilling, — 24 
cents.  Nay,  nay.  Our  Briton  refused,  and  con- 
tinues to  pile  his  trunk  on  a  "four-wheeler"  and  stand 
in  the  rain  at  his  destination  and  identify  it,  rather 
than  do  the  old  thing  in  a  new  way.  So  sailor-men, 
be  they  English,  Japs,  Yankees  or  Portuguese,  will 
be  sailor-men  till  men  no  longer  "go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships,"  until  we  quit  the  sea  and  take  to  the  air. 

Our  passenger  list  is  a  small  one — ^less  than  half  our 
capacity,  and  not  as  motley  as  usual.  We  are  the 
only  tourists.  All  the  rest  are  going  on  their  affairs 
of  blood  or  business,  visiting  kinfolk  across  the  sea 
or  going  to  their  occupations  in  foreign  parts.  There 
are  half  a  dozen  young  fellows  going  to  Manila  in  our 
civil  service  there — clerks  and  the  like.  There  is  a 
captain  of  native  constabulary  returning  from  a  va- 

[12] 


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ON    THE    PACIFIC. 

cation.  There  is  the  Inspector  of  Public  Buildings 
for  Manila,  one  of  the  finest  Dutchmen  I  ever  met,  a 
world- wanderer  who  knows  Kowloon  and  Callao, 
Singapore  and  Aden,  and  all  the  strange  places  of 
the  earth,  as  familiarly  as  I  know  Kansas,  a  tramp 
royal  whose  home  is  under  his  hat,  who  has  the  gift 
of  tongues,  a  seeing  eye,  plays  all  the  games  ever 
invented  and  plays  them  well,  and  is  the  best  smoking- 
room  company  you  can  imagine. 

There  is  the  young  doctor  from  Manila  who  has  his 
bride  with  him,  a  fair-faced  girl  frorii*  the  States 
whom  he  is  taking  back  to  the  Islands  to  slowly  stew 
her  life  out,  lose  that  fresh  complexion,  and  likely 
fill  one  of  the  new  graves  in  the  rapidly  growing 
American  cemetery.    Women  die  quickly  out  there. 

There  are  Jack  and  Jean,  two  eight-year-olds,  going 
with  their  mother,  the  wife  of  a  St.  Louis  editor,  to 
visit  their  sister,  an  army  officer's  wife,  at  Manila. 
Jack  and  Jean  are  twins,  and  their  eighth  birthday 
happened  Monday,  and  dear  old  Captain  Filmer  had 
a  whacking  big  birthday  cake  for  them  and  gave  them 
each  a  "Nippon  Maru"  stick-pin.  Jack  ate  his  cake 
in  silence,  but  Jean  insisted  upon  everyone's  having 
a  share,  down  to  the  cabin-boys.     They  are  the  pets 

[13] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

of  the  ship,  sweet-faced,  clear-eyed  American  chil- 
dren. 

As  a  contrast  to  them  there  is  their  constant  com- 
panion, the  little  Moro  boy  of  the  same  age.  Two 
school-teachers  from  the  Islands  accompany  him, 
going  back  to  their  work  after  a  brief  vacation.  His 
parents  were  killed  in  a  raid,  and  these  good  women 
adopted  him  and  he  has  been  two  years  at  school  in 
Minneapolis  at  their  expense.  Now  they  are  taking 
him  home,  and  hope  for  great  things  of  him.  He  is 
noisy,  forward,  a  little  overbearing  with  Jack,  yet 
withal  good-natured  and  kindly,  and  has  manners 
better  than  most  American  children.  He  has  a  tre- 
mendous physique  for  his  age,  and  looks  as  if  he  would 
be  a  leader  when  he  gets  his  growth. 

There  are  two  Chinamen  who  have  made  their 
fortune  in  South  America  and  are  going  home  to 
enjoy  it.  One  of  them  has  his  wife  with  him,  who 
looks  like  a  nice  Chinese  doll,  and  says  "Buenas  dias" 
in  the  prettiest  way  when  you  bow  to  her,  and  always 
shakes  hands  with  all  the  ladies  in  the  morning. 

There  is  a  buyer  for  a  great  New  York  importing 
house  who  goes  to  the  Orient  with  carte  hlanche  to 
buy  bronzes,  porcelains,  embroideries  and  art  objects 

[14] 


ON    THE    PACIFIC. 

with  no  limit  set  on  his  expenditure.  He  knows 
Japanese  art,  and  can  tell  china  of  one  period  from 
another;  keeps  an  oflSce  in  Yokohama  and  another 
in  Osake,  just  to  gather  up  rare  things.  He  has  been 
everywhere,  spent  his  life  in  learning  and  buying 
what  is  the  choicest  of  the  art  of  all  countries,  and  his 
stories  of  "finds"  and  how  and  where  he  found  them 
would  fill  a  volume. 

And  then  there  is  the  Governor.  I  leave  him  till  the 
last  intentionally,  and  leave  him  here  for  the  present. 
You  will  know  more  of  him  if  you  read  these  pages. 
I  mean  to  make  you  like  him  as  well  as  I  do,  for  I 
have  promised  to  break  my  trip  at  Manila  and  spend 
a  week  with  him  at  his  capital,  Benguet,  which  is  also 
the  summer  capital  now,  of  the  Islands,  from  whence 
he  rules  some  sixty  thousand  of  the  former  head- 
hunters,  Igorrotes,  but  lately  the  wildest  of  the  wild 
tribes.  He  deserves  a  chapter  to  himself,  and  shall 
have  it.  As  one  of  our  first  proconsuls,  ruling  with 
power  of  life  and  death  over  thousands,  as  a  type  of  the 
men  we  are  sending  out  there  to  take  up  the  white 
man's  burden,  he  surpasses  in  interest  to  me  all  the  rest. 

The  first  night  out  from  Frisco  we  stepped  on  the 
[15] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

tail  of  a  westerly  gale.  It  had  passed  us,  but  we  got  a 
touch  of  it,  and  I  awoke  in  the  night  to  feel  the  swift 
upheave  as  we  struck  the  quartering  seas,  the  roll  to 
starboard,  the  downward  plunge  and  the  reverse  roll. 
To  me  it  was  delightful.  As  a  child  I  used  to  swing 
the  other  children  till  they  fell  out  and  went  away 
to  relieve  their  diaphragms.  I  never  wearied  of  it, 
and  nothing  is  so  like  a  swing  as  a  small  ship  in  a  sea. 
But  it  was  far  otherwise  with  the  rest.  F.  yielded 
up  her  dinner  without  a  protest.  A.  was  "just 
dizzy,"  and  took  to  her  berth;  and  at  breakfast  but 
five  of  us  showed  up.  All  day  we  climbed  the  great 
swells  on  a  slant  and  bobbed  and  ducked  and  side- 
stepped and  pitched  and  rolled.  Coming  so  soon  after 
the  start,  it  slew  the  best  of  them.  It  was  surely 
a  test,  and  at  night  the  Governor  and  I  were  the  only 
occupants  of  the  smoking-room.  I  have  crossed  the 
Irish  Channel  when  every  passenger  but  myself  was 
sick,  and  this  was  as  bad.  By  morning  it  had  mod- 
erated, and  at  the  end  of  a  couple  of  days  most  of  the 
invalids  were  on  deck.  F.  suffered  less  than  usual, 
and  is  well  enough  to-day  to  think  of  her  appearance, 
which  clearly  indicates  convalescence.  I  have  hopes 
of  making  a  sailor  of  her  yet. 

[16]      . 


ON    THE    PACIFIC. 

When  we  left  Frisco  the  sea  was  breaking  heavily 
over  the  bar;  the  famous  "potato  patch,"  where 
many  a  tall  ship  has  gone  down,  and  so  called  because 
in  the  early  days  a  brig  loaded  with  potatoes  struck 
and  went  to  pieces  there.  Along  the  shore  the  water 
was  green,  a  clear  cobalt  as  shallow  salt  water  usually 
is,  but  when  we  had  rounded  the  bar  on  the  north 
and  dropped  our  pilot  and  set  our  course  southeasterly, 
straight  for  Honolulu  twenty-one  hundred  miles 
away,  we  found  the  true  "blue  water,"  "out  of  sound- 
ings" as  sailors  say.  And  what  a  blue  is  the  Pacific! 
It  is  almost  a  color  by  itself.  The  ordinary  hues 
fail  to  fully  describe  it.  More  like  indigo  than  any- 
thing else,  so  deep,  so  dark,  so  solid  and  impenetrable 
to  the  eye,  yet  gemmed  with  brilliants  at  the  touch 
of  every  breeze.  To-day  the  sky  is  a  true  turquoise, 
the  same,  I  doubt  not,  that  arches  over  Kansas,  and 
this  ocean  blue  fades  the  sky  by  contrast,  makes  the 
azure  looked  washed  out  and  pale.  Its  blue  is  in- 
extinguishable. In  sun  or  storm,  by  day  or  night, 
clear  or  cloudy  the  sky,  there  is  that  same  profound, 
unchanging  blue. 

This  morning  when  the  sun  rose  it  came  to  us  down 
a  sea  pathway  of  molten  silver  burnished  to  a  degree 

[17] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

intolerable  to  the  eye.  Nothing  but  the  sun  can 
change  this  blue — and  that  to  something  more  won- 
derful. 

I  was  trying  to  shave  this  morning  with  my 
bath-room  window  open  (we  have  a  bath-room  as 
big  as  an  ordinary  hotel  room);  trying  to  shave,  for 
I  was  constantly  rushing  to  the  window  to  watch 
perpetually  new  effects  from  the  sunrise,  new  showers 
of  diamonds  scattered  on  the  sea  floor  by  the  breeze, 
when  I  saw  my  first  flying-fish.  A  little  bird,  brown 
on  the  back,  white  beneath,  sprang  from  a  white- 
topped  wave,  and  skimmed  away  like  a  swallow. 
It  was  a  fish,  and  it  really  flies.  I  had  supposed  they 
only  leaped,  but  they  fly,  fly  with  wings  like  a  bird 
and  with  the  same  motion;  but  they  can  fly  only  so 
long  as  their  wings  are  wet.  When  these  dry  out  in 
the  air  they  must  dip  again  and  wet  their  wings.  I 
saw  one  skim  and  dip  and  rise  again  for  fully  a  hun- 
dred yards.  They  grow  a  foot  in  length,  and  when 
full  grown  have  two  full  sets  of  wings. 

When  we  left  the  harbor  the  white  gulls  followed 
us  for  a  day,  and  left  us.  They  nest  by  thousands  on 
the  Farallones,  rocky  islets  forty  miles  out,  and  are 
the  scavengers  of  the  harbor. 

[18] 


ON    THE    PACIFIC. 

The  second  day  the  albatross  joined  us.  Whence 
he  came  no  one  knows,  where  he  nests  and  raises  his 
young  no  one  on  the  ship  knows,  how  he  picked  up 
our  ship  no  one  knows.  There  are  a  dozen  of  them, 
and  they  will  follow  us  till  we  sight  Honolulu  and 
then  leave  us  to  the  harbor  gulls  and  pick  up  some 
outgoing  ship.  On  tireless  wing  they  follow  us — 
circle,  pursue,  retreat,  appear  and  disappear,  flying 
in  a  day  not  less  than  two  thousand  miles,  and  usually 
without  the  movement  of  a  wing.  They  merely  sail 
as  a  ship  does,  with  wide  wings  atilt,  to  right  or  left, 
up  or  down,  taking  advantage  of  every  slant  of  air. 
If  weary,  they  settle  on  the  water,  and,  head  beneath 
a  wing,  sleep  as  quietly  as  the  barnyard  fowl  on  its 
roost. 

At  certain  hours  well  known  to  the  birds,  the  refuse 
of  the  meal  is  thrown  overboard,  and  they  settle  to 
their  feast  and  we  miss  them  for  an  hour  or  two. 
Then  they  overtake  us  and  resume  their  tireless  cir- 
cling about  the  ship. 

Tonight  we  saw  the  Southern  Cross  for  the  first 
time,  just  above  the  horizon.  I  had  not  expected  to 
see  it  in  such  high  latitudes,  but  there  it  is,  clear  and 
splendid,  the  most  perfect  of  all  the  constellations, 

[19] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

most  perfect  because  it  is  truly  proportioned,  each 
star  in  its  exact  position,  each  equally  and  superla- 
tively brilliant.  We  shall  lose  it  when  we  turn  north 
to  Yokohama,  and  find  it  again  on  the  road  to  Ma- 
nila. Somehow  it  is  an  epoch.  It  marks  and  con- 
notes the  strange  new  world  we  are  in,  so  foreign  to 
all  we  have  known.  We  feel  far  away  and  very 
lonely,  this  speck  on  the  infinite  sea,  this  atom  on 
the  illimitable  waste.  If  there  is  anywhere  a  place 
where  man  acknowledges  his  littleness  and  turns  to  a 
Higher  Power  it  is  at  sea ;  and  so  when  Sunday  came 
we  all  went  to  service  in  the  dining-room.  There  is 
no  clergyman  aboard,  and  so  the  "Old  Man,"  the  Cap- 
tain, read  the  Episcopal  service  and  read  it  beauti- 
fully. He  is  simply  and  sincerely  religious,  beUeves 
in  the  Book  "from  kiver  to  kiver,"  albeit  he  can  cuss 
the  pitch  out  of  the  seams  and  make  even  a  Malay 
turn  pale.  He  is  great  on  exegesis.  Has  it  all  worked 
out,  can  explain  all  the  miracles,  and  is  especially 
strong  on  Revelation.  Certainly  it  was  moving  to 
see  that  old  white-haired  seaman  who  has  followed  the 
roughest  of  aU  occupations,  who  has  been  ship- 
wrecked, fought  for  his  life  in  seaport  rows,  quelled  a 
mutiny  with  a  belaying-pin,  and  dealt  with  the  rudest 

[20] 


ON    THE     PACIFIC. 

and  most  profane  of  the  world's  citizens,  kneel  and 
in  unfeigned  piety  commend  himself  to  the  care  of 
God  as  simply  as  a  child  at  its  mother's  knee.  He  is 
fine,  that  old  man,  and  when  I  take  off  my  cap  to 
his  cheery  morning  greeting  I  bow  to  one  of  the  best 
of  that  "Ancient  Order  of  Gentlemen." 

Diamond  Head  is  in  sight,  and  tomorrow  we  shall 
"do"  Honolulu. 


[21] 


HON  0]:.U3L.U. 

Mark  Twain  visited  Hawaii  in  1869,  shortly  before 
his  trip  abroad,  and  his  letters  from  there  gave  him 
his  first  reputation. 

In  1896,  on  his  torn*  of  the  world,  which  is  described 
in  "Following  the  Equator,"  he  was  to  lecture  there, 
but  an  outbreak  of  cholera  prevented  his  landing, 
and  he  never  saw  it  again.  It  was  a  bitter  disappoint- 
ment to  him,  and  in  his  book  you  will  find  this  writ- 
ten of  Hawaii : 

"No  alien  land  in  all  the  world  has  any  deep  strong 
charm  for  me  but  that  one;  no  other  land  could  so 
longingly  and  beseechingly  haunt  me  sleeping  and 
waking  through  half  a  lifetime,  as  that  one  has  done. 
Other  things  leave  me,  but  it  abides;  other  things 
change,  but  it  remains  the  same.  For  me  its  balmy 
airs  are  always  blowing,  its  summer  seas  flashing  in 
the  sun,  the  pulsing  of  its  surf-beat  is  in  my  ear;  I 
can  see  its  garlanded  crags,  its  leaping  cascades,  its 
plumy  palms  drowsing  by  the  shore,  its  remote  sum- 
mits floating  like  islands  above  the  cloud-rack;  I 
can  feel  the  spirit  of  its  woodland  solitude,  I  can  hear 
the  splash  of  its  brooks ;  in  my  nostrils  still  lives  the 
breath  of  flowers  that  perished  twenty  years  ago." 

[22] 


HONOLULU. 


Does  this  seem  like  exaggeration?  Go  to  Honolulu 
and  see. 

A  world-wanderer,  he  had  seen  everything  with  a 
seeing  and  discriminating  eye,  and  in  his  old  age  Hono- 
lulu comes  back  to  him  as  the  most  beautiful  spot  in 
the  traveled  world. 

It  is  so.  I  have  seen  something  of  the  earth's 
beauty-spots,  and  when  the  last  call  comes,  "from  la^- 
bor  to  refreshment,"  I  want  to  go  to  Hawaii. 

The  merest  enumeration  of  its  physical  advantages 
is  astonishing.  Lying  on  the  twenty-first  parallel, 
it  produces  everything  of  the  tropics,  but  the  temper- 
ature never  goes  above  90.  Always  cooled  by  the 
Trades,  laden  with  the  ocean  ozone,  there  is  no  lassi- 
tude in  its  air,  no  vitality-sapping  heat,  none  of  the 
lethargy,  the  physical  and  moral  deterioration  that 
marks  the  countries  along  the  line. 

On  the  contrary,  people  from  "the  States"  thrive 
there,  are  active,  energetic,  progressive,  and  aggressive. 
Their  children  are  healthy,  strong,  and  vigorous. 

There  is  not  a  poisonous  reptile  or  a  noxious  plant 
in  these  "Blessed  Isles." 

Its  flowers  are  always  blooming  and  always  fragrant. 
The  soil  of  decomposed  tufa  is  astonishingly  fertile, 

[23] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

inexhaustible,  kindly,  easily  tilled.  Every  day  there 
are  light  showers,  and  the  absence  of  dust,  the  amaz- 
ing verdance  of  its  luxuriant  vegetation,  the  cool, 
washed  and  sparkling  air,  delight,  bewilder,  and  ex- 
hilarate. 

The  green  valleys  are  frowned  upon  by  stupendous 
volcanic  cliffs,  nearly  always  topped  with  floating 
cloud-rack,  and  wreathed  far  down  with  feathery 
vapor.  Down  their  stem  faces,  softened  here  and 
there  by  clinging  vines  and  strange  plants,  rush 
innumerable  cascades,  here  foaming  with  voluminous 
thundering,  there  lacing  the  rocks  with  tenuous  spray. 
Set  this  in  an  incomparable  sea,  whose  near-by  color 
exhausts  every  green  of  the  palette,  broken  by  the 
flashing  surf,  and  whose  further  distance  melts  from 
cobalt  to  turquoise,  from  turquoise  to  indigo,  thence 
to  purple,  until  you  lose  the  sense  of  color  and  at  the 
last  perceive  only  vastness,  space  without  limit,  and 
where  will  you  match  it? 

It  is  a  poet's  vision  wrought  out  and  made  real, 
an  earthly  paradise. 

I  shall  not  tell  you  of  the  material  conditions  of  the 
islands. 

I  am  told  it  is  a  rich  man's  country.    That  living 

[24] 


HONOLULU. 


is  expensive,  wages  low ;  that  a  few  large  proprietors 
own  all  the  fertile  land;  that  sugar  is  low  and  the 
country  not  as  prosperous  as  it  was  under  the  mon- 
archy; that  Uncle  Sam  collects  in  the  way  of  tariffs 
and  internal  revenue  twice  as  much  as  he  spends  there. 
I  do  not  know.  You  can  find  these  things  in  the 
Blue  Books. 

I  enjoyed  Hawaii  with  my  senses,  and  let  my  brain 
rest.  I  care  nothing  for  exports  from  Paradise; 
statistics  of  Eden  would  be  a  desecration.  There 
was  no  census-taker  in  the  first  Garden.  I  did  not  go 
below  that  enchanting  surface  to  learn  the  compara- 
tive units  of  income  and  outgo. 

The  people  seemed  well  dressed,  well  housed.  Cer- 
tainly they  are  cheerful,  and  life  seems  to  have  a  zest 
for  them  that  Pittsburg  and  Packington  cannot  show. 

Doubtless  the  natives  do  not  ride  in  top  buggies, 
nor  have  pianos  and  lace  curtains.  But  they  have 
each  a  little  garden,  a  bread-fruit  tree  and  a  banana, 
and  that  suffices,  for  they  have  all  about  them  pic- 
tures such  as  no  artist  ever  painted.  Air,  freedom, 
space,  and  in  their  hearts  the  wisdom  of  a  people  who 
find  contentment  in  the  things  they  have.  They  are 
happy:  what  more  is  there?    The  poorest  in  his  tiny 

[25] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

hut  on  the  slopes  of  the  Pali,  singing  his  soft  Ha- 
waiian songs,  is  happier  than  Morgan  and  Rocke- 
feller, so  I  waste  no  pity  on  him, — he  does  not  need  it. 
On  the  docks  I  saw  a  grimy  stevedore,  half-naked, 
plashed  with  sweat,  but  about  his  ragged  hat  was  a 
wreath  of  flowers  that  money  could  not  buy  in  the 
States.  Incongruous?  Yes,  elsewhere,  but  here  nat- 
ural; he  would  not  work  without  them.  To  him, 
there  in  the  stifling  warehouse,  they  mean  his  little 
home,  where  he  will  go  when  he  has  earned  a  few  dol- 
lars. They  bring  him  a  breath  of  the  open,  the  fra- 
grance and  greenness  of  this,  his  land.  They  are  to 
him  what  a  drink  or  a  smoke  is  to  the  New  York  or 
London  stevedore,  and  it  marks  character,  the  aes- 
thetic touch  and  love  of  nature  that  this  beautiful  sum- 
mer-land has  nourished  in  her  poorest  and  lowliest 

Honolulu  is  modem,  up-to-date,  with  wide,  well- 
paved  streets,  stately  business  blocks,  and  as  fine  an 
electric  car  system  as  you  shall  find  anywhere.  Each 
house  is  detached,  and  each  unlike  the  other.  And 
about  each  a  wealth  of  strange  blooms,  flowering 
trees,  fronded  palms,  bizarre  exotic  luxuriance,  so 
that  every  house  is  a  picture  by  itself. 

[26] 


HONOLULU. 


Through  avenues  of  the  stately  "royal  palm," 
white,  smooth  columns  crowned  with  a  burst  of  feath- 
ery foliage,  you  see  wide-eaved  houses,  each  with  its 
"lanai,"  a  sort  of  outdoor  sitting-room,  roofed  and 
sheltered  with  woven  jalousies,  the  living-room  of  the 
house. 

The  lawn  is  a  native  grass,  almost  equal  to  blue- 
grass.  Here  is  the  Ponciana  Regia,  the  most  gorgeous 
of  all  flowering  trees,  whose  perfect  umbrella  top  is 
green  beneath  and  scarlet  above,  with  its  mass  of 
great  flame-colored  flowers  that  rest  on  the  green 
fronds  as  though  they  were  strewn  there  by  hand. 
The  Bougainvillea,  a  tree  with  purple  flowers;  the 
"pink  shower"  and  the  "yellow  shower"  trees,  cov- 
ered with  pink  and  yellow  flowers ;  the  Algeroba,  the 
rubber  tree,  cocoa  palms,  bread-fruit,  papai,  that 
bears  a  melon  much  like  our  cantaloupe;  the  alligator 
pear,  used  for  salads,  and  countless  others,  novel  in 
form  and  bewildering  in  variety.  Every  outlook 
entices,  every  aspect  allures.  You  are  reluctant  to 
pass,  yet  loth  to  linger,  for  an  ever-new  vista  draws 
you  on. 

We  took  an  automobile  up  to  the  Pali,  the  great 
cliff,  where  Kamehameha,  after  defeating  the  last  of 

[27] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

his  enemies,  drove  them  over  its  height  to  destruction 
and  became  the  Napoleon  of  the  Pacific. 

The  road  follows  the  Nuuanu  Valley  to  its  source, 
winding  upward  to  the  pass  at  its  head,  where  you 
look  across  a  green  valley  to  the  other  side  of  the 
island,  and  where  the  Trades  accumulating  in  the 
valley  funnel  rush  through  the  narrow  pass  with  the 
force  of  a  hurricane.  The  ride  down  of  six  miles  is 
the  most  glorious  I  have  ever  taken.  You  slide  down 
and  dip  and  turn  and  wind  between  great  volcanic 
cliffs  wrapped  with  cloud- wreaths,  barred  with  patches 
of  green  and  cleft  with  gorges  holding  each  its  water- 
fall. At  a  turn,  you  see  below  you  the  town  set  in 
greenery,  the  harbor  green  and  opalescent,  the  reefs 
beyond,  where  the  surf  breaks  into  spray,  and  beyond 
aU,  the  purpling  sea.    A  picture  never  to  be  forgotten. 

Then  there  is  Waikiki  Beach,  most  beautiful  of 
the  world's  sea  marges.  It  lies  in  a  two-mile  crescent 
of  golden  sand,  protected  from  the  sharks  by  the 
outer  reef  of  coral,  over  which  the  great  Pacific  comb- 
ers break  with  foam  and  shouting  and  then  come 
rushing  to  the  shore  in  long  green  rollers  that  furnish 
the  famous  surf-riding  of  the  Islands.  They  come  in 
with  a  velocity  as  high  as  40  miles  an  hour,  and  the 

[28] 


HONOLULU. 


natives  ride  them  in  a  canoe  or  even  on  a  board, 
keeping  the  crest  of  a  wave  until  it  breaks  on  the 
beach.  The  water  shoals  so  gradually  that  there  is 
little  danger,  and  it  affords  a  novel  sensation  for  the 
most  jaded  tourist  to  come  hurling  landward  on  a 
ten-foot  wave  where  the  wrong  turn  of  a  paddle  means 
a  capsize. 

There  is  a  school-house  at  Waikiki  taught  by  a 
native  girl,  where  Hawaiians,  Japs  and  Chinese,  the 
motley  offspring  of  the  Islands,  learn  English.  It  was 
wonderful  to  see  those  young  heathen  follow  Yan- 
kee ways,  for  the  school  is  strictly  on  American  lines. 
The  discipline  is  perfect,  and  their  progress  amazing. 
The  teacher  told  them  a  little  Chinese  fairy  story,  and 
then  each  wrote  it  down  in  his  own  way  in  English. 
Here  is  one  of  them  written  by  a  Chinese  boy  of  eight, 
in  a  fair  plain  hand.  Mark  the  grammar  and  choice 
of  words: 

"Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  man  called  Hok 
Tee.  People  thought  he  was  a  good  man,  but  he  was 
not.  He  used  to  steal.  No  one  thought  Hok  Tee 
was  a  thief.  One  day  Hok  Tee's  cheek  began  to 
swell.  He  went  to  the  doctor.  The  doctor  said, 
'You  have  been  doing  something  wrong.  The  gods 
are  angry  with  you.'  Hok  Tee  gave  his  money  to 
the  doctor.    The  doctor  sent  him  to  the  dwarfs. 

[29] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Hok  Tee  went  to  the  dwarfs'  tree  and  hid  himself  in 
the  branches.  He  fell  and  hurt  himself.  The  dwarfs 
made  Hok  Tee  dance.  They  were  not  pleased  with 
his  dancing.  The  next  full  moon,  Hok  Tee  went 
again.  He  begged  them  to  cure  him.  They  cured 
him." 

How  is  that  for  Ah  Po,  aged  eight?  -My  copy  is 
exact,  and  you  will  see  that  there  is  not  an  error  in 
it  of  any  kind.  How  many  Kansas  boys  of  eight 
can  do  as  well?  And  there  is  no  race  trouble  between 
them.  They  all  learn  quickly  and  play  together  as 
though  they  were  of  one  blood.  The  Island  schools 
are  fine  and  the  literacy  of  the  people  already  high. 

One  of  the  sights  of  the  world  is  the  Aquarium  at 
Waikiki.  The  fish  are  all  from  Island  waters,  some 
two  hundred  varieties.  The  food  fish  of  these  waters 
are  unsurpassed;  the  mullet,  sea-bass,  sea-salmon 
and  many  others  constituting  the  main  food  supply 
of  the  Asiatics  and  natives;  but  the  Aquarium  is  just 
to  show  what  Neptune  can  produce  when  he  gets  gay. 
No  opium-smoker,  hasheesh  drunkard  or  delirium 
tremens  victim  ever  imagined  such  grotesque  and  out- 
rageous forms.  There  are  fish  with  hands,  with  gills 
in  their  fins,  with  horns  and  spikes  and  sails;  fish  that 

[30] 


HONOLULU. 


sit  on  their  tails  and  look  at  you  with  human  eyes; 
fish  with  hair  and  fur;  fish  striped,  streaked,  spotted, 
mottled,  cross-barred,  checkered  and  dyed  every  with 
color,  primar}'  and  derivative;  fish  with  heads  like  a 
horse,  like  a  man,  like  a  bull,  like  a  frog,  and  fish  with 
no  heads  at  all.  There  are  monstrous  crayfish,  big 
as  a  tub,  crabs  with  six  claws  and  the  Lord  knows 
what  else.  It  took  me  an  hour  to  get  sober,  or  feel 
sober  again  when  I  got  through.  The  wonders  of 
the  deep  down  here  surpass  the  visions  of  Revelation, 
but  for  me,  let  me  have  my  staid,  unassuming,  sober- 
jacketed  old  friends,  the  bass  and  crappie.  This 
foppery  of  the  brine,  like  that  of  the  land,  goes  with 
uselessness  except  to  look  at. 

In  a  big  tank  on  the  shore  is  a  man-eating  shark, 
recently  caught.  The  shark  alone  of  aU  fish,  will  not 
live  in  captivity.  With  the  best  of  care,  four  weeks 
is  the  limit  of  his  life  in  a  tank.  His  fierce  and  restless 
spirit  will  not  brook  confinement  nor  live  within 
limits.  His  companion  is  an  ancient  sea-turtle  who 
looks  as  though  he  might  be  the  father  of  the  breed. 
He  weighs  at  least  three  hundred  pounds  and  the  moss 
on  his  back  is  an  inch  long,  and  he  looks  as  hoary 
and  antique  as  the  Coliseum.    The  waters  about  the 

[31] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

islands  are  full  of  them,  and  if  there  is  anything  more 
delicious  than  green-turtle  steak,  I  want  to  see  it. 

These  waters  are  also  full  of  sharks,  man-eaters  aU, 
tiger  sharks,  they  call  them.  Inside  the  reef  at 
Waikiki,  bathing  is  safe;  elsewhere  is  it  pretty  near 
suicide.  A  week  ago  a  stranger  went  in  swimming 
off  Diamond  Head.  Yesterday  they  found  his  ring 
and  some  buttons  in  a  shark.  Hie  jacet.  And  they 
did  not  even  bury  the  shark.  Saves  embalming  and 
funeral  expenses,  but  bad  for  the  undertaker. 

It  is  said  by  some  that  a  shark  will  not  bite  a  ka- 
naka ;  cannot,  is  more  like  it,  for  a  shark  will  eat  any- 
thing and  bite  at  anything.  The  kanaka  is  quicker 
in  the  water  than  a  shark,  and  hunts  him  in  his  own 
element  for  the  sport  of  it.  Also,  sharks'  teeth  are 
salable  and  sharks'  fins  make  good  soup. 

One  of  the  favorite  ways  of  killing  sharks  sounds 
incredible,  but  is  common  enough  here.  The  kanaka 
swims  out  beyond  the  reef  with  a  hardwood  stick, 
sharp  at  both  ends,  a  foot  or  more  in  length.  When 
a  shark  engages  him  he  waits  until  the  shark  opens 
his  mouth  to  bite,  to  do  which  he  must  turn  on  his 
back,  as  his  upper  jaw  projects  a  foot  beyond  the  lower 
The  kanaka  jams  the  stick  into  the  shark's  mouth, 

[32] 


HONOLULU. 


and  when  he  shuts  his  jaw,  expecting  to  find  a  kanaka 
leg  in  it,  he  transfixes  his  jaw  fast  on  the  sharp  ends 
of  the  stick  and  is  helpless.  The  kanaka  rips  him 
open  with  his  knife  and  tows  him  ashore.  Naturally 
it  takes  an  expert  swimmer  to  do  it,  and  the  kanakas 
are  that  and  then  some. 

Here  are  a  couple  of  true  stories  of  what  they  can 
do  in  the  water: 

The  "Nippon  Maru"  was  ready  to  sail  from  Hon- 
olulu once,  and  only  awaiting  an  Island  steamer 
from  Pearl  Harbor  with  bananas.  The  Uttle  side- 
wheel  boat  was  in  the  channel  outside  when  a  cona, 
a  sort  of  typhoon,  came  up.  These  winds  are  much 
dreaded  in  the  Islands,  as  they  get  up  a  terrific  sea  in 
a  few  minutes.  Within  five  minutes  the  little  side- 
wheeler  was  capsized.  She  carried  a  crew  of  five 
kanakas  and  one  American,  the  engineer,  who  had 
but  one  leg.  The  crew  of  the  "  Nippon  Maru  "  wanted 
to  launch  the  lifeboat  and  go  to  their  rescue,  but  the 
captain  refused.  He  had  had  much  experience  in 
these  waters,  and  he  knew  no  boat  could  live  in  that 
sea.  The  harbor  was  thronged  with  people  watching 
the  tragedy,  powerless  to  help  the  doomed  men. 
Presently  in  the  smother  of  spray  just  outside  the 

[33] 


THE    FAR*    EAST    TODAY. 

reef  appeared  a  black  head,  another,  and  then  an- 
other. The  three  dived  through  the  surf  that  broke 
over  the  reef,  and  were  soon  inside  the  breakwate 
of  the  reef  and  swimming  easily  for  shore.  Still  the 
crowd  watched ;  the  one-legged  engineer  was  of  course 
drowned.  (No  man  with  one  leg  can  swim;  that 
is  curious,  for  a  one-armed  man  can.)  But  there 
might  be  another  kanaka  saved,  and  boats  put  out 
as  far  as  it  was  safe,  inside  the  reef.  Presently  in 
the  boiling  smother,  worse  than  Niagara  where  it 
breaks  to  its  fall,  appeared  three  heads.  The  two 
kanakas  were  bringing  the  helpless  engineer  in,  and 
they  did  it.  They  dived  through  the  awful  surf  and 
brought  him  over  the  reef,  alive  but  unconscious. 
The  kanakas  were  but  little  the  worse  for  it.  And 
mark  you,  they  brought  that  helpless  engineer  through 
a  sea  in  which  experts  agreed  no  boat  could  live. 

Did  anyone  say  anything  about  swimming? 

Here  is  another: 

Molly  Bush  was  quite  noted  as  an  Island  beauty. 
Her  father  was  an  Englishman,  her  mother  a  Hawai- 
ian. Mentally  her  education  was  English,  physically 
Hawaiian.  She  was  going  from  Oahu  to  Hilo  on  one 
of  the  island  steamers.    She  was  the  only  Hawaiian 

[34] 


HONOLULU. 


passenger ;  all  the  rest  were  Japs.  A  cona  came  up. 
The  captam  saw  that  his  boat  was  about  to  founder, 
and  lowered  his  small  boats.  The  sea  was  so  rough 
that  the  boats  had  to  keep  at  a  distance  on  a  riding 
line;  the  passengers  were  lowered  into  the  sea  and 
drawn  to  the  boats.  When  the  captain  offered  to 
tie  the  rope  around  Miss  Molly's  shapely  waist  she 
indignantly  refused. 

''Go  in  a  boat  with  those  Japs?  Go  into  the  water 
with  a  rope  around  me?    Nonsense!" 

The  captain  remonstrated.  He  wanted  to  save  her 
life.  He  would  be  much  criticized  if  he  let  pretty 
Molly  Bush,  the  Rose  of  the  Islands,  drown.  Her 
reply  was  emphatic.  She  stripped  off  her  clothes, 
tied  them  to  her  shoulders,  and  swam  ashore.  The 
Japs  were  all  drowned.  It  was  another  case  of  swim- 
ming through  a  sea  where  a  boat  could  not  live. 

Readers  of  "Paul  and  Virginia,"  even  those  who 
have  wept  over  its  finish,  will  agi*ee  with  me,  that 
Molly  had  more  sense  than  Virginia. 

I  could  multiply  these  tales.  The  kanakas  think 
nothing  of  swimming  from  Mau  to  Hawaii,  31  miles. 
In  fact,  there  is  no  record  of  the  death  of  any  Islander 
in  water.     He  may  drown  himself  in  rum  or  gin,  es- 

[35] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

pecially  the  latter,  of  which  he  is  very  fond,  but  you 
cannot  hurt  him  in  the  water. 

\Vhen  our  boat  entered  the  harbor,  a  dozen  half- 
grown  boys  swam  out  to  meet  us  and  dived  for  pennies 
and  nickels  and  never  lost  one.  One  boy,  to  show 
off,  came  up  feet  first,  with  the  nickel  between  his 
toes.  The  captain  wanted  the  ship's  bottom  exam- 
ined, and  one  of  the  natives  took  a  rock  in  his  arms  and 
descended  to  the  keel,  and  in  four  trips  worked  her 
entire  length. 

Coming  out,  the  boys  swarmed  up  the  sides  of  the 
ship,  dived  from  her  bridge,  thirty  feet,  and  climbed 
aboard  and  dived  again  until  the  sailors  drove  them 
ofif. 

A  little  touch  of  race  feeling  happened  here.  Arra, 
the  Moro  boy,  pushed  one  of  the  kanaka  boys  as  he 
was  about  to  dive.  A\Tien  he  came  up  he  threatened 
to  come  back  and  slap  the  Moro,  "Ah,  get  out,  you 
nigger!"  said  Arra.  Arra  was  seven  shades  darker 
than  the  kanaka,  nearly  black,  in  fact,  but  he  has  been 
in  the  States  at  school  and  considers  himself  white. 
The  kanaka  was  probably  three-quarters  white. 
There  is  hardly  any  pure  kanaka  blood  in  the  Islands, 
even  in  the  Royal  family.    My  chauffeur,  when  I 

[36] 


HONOLULU. 


asked  him  his  nationahty,  answered  proudly,  "I  am 
three-quarter  wite."  Down  South,  the  worst  in- 
sult is  for  one  darky  to  call  another,  "You  black  nig- 
ger!" That  means  razors,  sure.  The  descendants 
of  Ham,  the  world  over,  seem  to  be  proud  of  any  white 
blood.  The  word  "nigger"  doesn't  go  as  an  insult 
on  the  Islands,  but  "savage"  does.  I  heard  one 
kanaka  boy  say  to  another,  "Go  on,  you  savage; 
your  father  ate  Captain  Cook."  That  closed  the  ar- 
gument.    Vituperation  could  go  no  further. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Islanders  are  said  to  be  of 
Arabian  descent,  and  came  here  in  canoes  about  800 
years  ago.  They  are  a  kindly  and  gentle  people. 
They  love  flowers,  music,  and  the  dance.  Their 
music  has  a  wonderful  rhythm  to  it,  wholly  unlike 
that  of  any  of  the  South  Sea  peoples.  It  is  dreamy, 
sensuous,  with  an  undertone  of  melancholy.  Their 
stringed  orchestras  are  fine,  and  when  they  play  dance 
music  they  sing  to  it.  F.  says  their  music  is  the  best 
she  ever  danced  to. 

Nothing  shows  their  character  more  fitly  than  their 
salutations:  "Aloha" — "Love,"  or  "Love  to  you." 
The  English  "How  do  you  do?"  the  French  "How 
do  you  carry  yourself?"  the  German  "How  goes  it?" 

[37.] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

t 

are  like  a  blow  in  the  face  compared  to  this  kindly, 
affectionate  greeting. 

They  are  not  industrious  nor  thrifty;  they  have 
lost  their  patrimony  in  these  beautiful  islands.  The 
rapacious  American  and  German  have  wrested  from 
them  their  homes.  The  Japs  have  taken  their  work. 
They  are  a  vanishing  race,  already  dwindled  in  sev- 
enty years  from  three  hundred  thousand  to  forty 
thousand. 

I  suppose  the  exploitation  of  the  Islands  by  foreign 
capital  makes  for  ''progress."  It  means  more  sugar, 
more  exports.  Flowers  and  music  and  song  and 
kindly  courtesy  have  no  commercial  value. 

The  "lei"  girls,  with  their  strings  of  exquisite 
flowers,  represent  no  increment  of  capital.  This  is 
the  Twentieth  Century,  and  it  has  no  room  for  leisure, 
for  song  and  fragrance,  for  courtesy  and  happy  loiter- 
ing. The  yellow  man  and  the  brown  must  bow  his 
back  to  the  task  the  white  man  sets,  or  get  off  the 
earth.  And  he  is  getting  off.  The  white  man's  rum 
and  the  white  man's  vices  finish  him  quickly. 

Soon  there  will  be  no  Islanders,  no  "lei"  girls,  no 
brown  bodies  diving  through  the  great  combers  or 
riding  the  surf  in  happy  idleness,  no  songs  and  dances 

[38] 


HONOLULU. 


and  flowers; — ^just  sugar,  sugar  and  tobacco,  and  a 
"prosperous  community."  May  I  not  live  to  see  the 
day. 

Good-by,  Hawaii,  "Pearl  of  the  Pacific" :  Aloha. — 
love  to  you. 


[39] 


JAPAN, 

"At  the  end  of  the  fight, 
A  tombstone  white, 

And  the  name  of  the  late  deceased. 
An  epitaph  drear, 
'A  fool  lies  here 

Who  tried  to  hustle  the  East.' " 

We  have  crossed  the  Pacific  6,000  miles,  skirted  the 
southern  shores  of  Japan,  passed  through  the  Inland 
Sea,  and  are  now  in  the  China  Sea  sailing  south  for 
Manila,  where  we  shall  arrive  the  27th. 

We  have  been  on  the  "Nippon"  twenty-five  days, 
and  shall  be  with  it  off  and  on  till  July  11th, — a  long, 
long  trip. 

We  have  touched  at  Yokohama,  Kobe  and  Naga- 
saki, and  have  seen  a  little  of  Japan.  We  shall  spend 
three  weeks  in  traveling  over  it  on  bur  way  home,  and 
I  shall  defer  any  extended  description  of  the  country 
till  later. 

The  geography  of  Japan  is  an  irregular  capital  L, 
with  Yokohama  at  the  southeast  heel,  from  whence 
it  stretches  northerly  300  miles  to  the  sea  of  Okhotsk 
and  westwardly  about  the  same  to  Nagasaki.    Yoko- 

[40] 


JAPAN. 

hama  is  the  chief  port  of  the  Islands,  but  twenty-eight 
miles  from  the  capital,  and  is  one  of  the  greatest  ship- 
ping centers  of  the  world. 

Steamers  touch  or  start  from  here  for  America,  the 
Philippines,  Australia,  China,  Europe,  and  nearly  all 
the  ports  of  the  world.  Its  magnificent  harbor  is 
crowded  with  sails  from  every  sea  and  the  flags  of 
every  nation. 

Here  the  East  and  West  meet  and  the  tides  of  ocean 
commerce  from  every  sea  pay  tribute  and  pour  their 
wealth  into  its  lap. 

It  is  a  curious  mixture  of  Old  and  New  Japan,  of 
the  Occident  and  the  Orient, — indescribable,  fascinat- 
ing, with  a  flavor  like  those  strange  condiments  that 
the  East  produces.  The  railroad  system  of  the  Is- 
lands converges  here.  You  may  see  Fujiyama  from 
its  streets  on  a  clear  day.  You  may  ride  in  an  au- 
tomobile or  a  rickshaw.  You  may  stop  at  an  Amer- 
ican hotel  with  every  luxury,  or  at  a  Japanese  inn 
where  you  furnish  your  own  bedding  and  have  a 
miniature  sawhorse  for  a  pillow.  You  may  have  the 
ways  and  the  luxuries,  the  food  and  drink  of  the  West, 
yet  savor  the  strange  exotic  scents  and  flavors  of  the 
Far  East. 

[41]] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Its  situation  is  superb.  Its  harbor  one  of  the  best 
in  the  world,  and  its  foreign  population  as  well  as  trade 
are  growing  by  leaps  and  bounds. 

There  is  much  talk  of  war  in  Yokohama,  but  it  will 
not  come,  not  now ;  later  it  may.  The  war  talk  comes 
from  parliamentary  groups  in  opposition  to  the  gov- 
ernment, and  a  few  Jingo  newspapers.  The  rulers  of 
Japan  do  not  want  it  now.  They  know  that  Japan 
is  too  poor.  Of  course  the  hoodlums  of  San  Fran- 
cisco may  precipitate  us  at  any  moment  into  a  war. 
A  few  more  outrages  on  the  Japanese  may  so  increase 
the  popular  feeling  here  that  the  government's  hand 
may  be  forced,  for  Japan  has  a  popular  government 
and  freedom  of  the  press.  As  an  instance  of  the  ef- 
forts the  government  is  making  to  preserve  peace, 
the  Tokio  Puck,  a  comic  illustrated  paper,  had  a  car- 
toon showing  Uncle  Sam  as  a  lion  crushing  a  Japanese 
in  his  jaws,  with  the  legend  underneath:  "We  may 
have  to  take  a  gun  to  the  American  Lion  as  we  did 
to  the  Russian  Bear."  The  government  could  not 
suppress  it,  but  it  bought  up  and  destroyed  the  entire 
issue, — fearful  of  the  results  on  popular  feeling.  They 
are  a  proud,  high-spirited  people,  perhaps  a  little  cocky 

[42] 


JAPAN. 

over  their  recent  achievements ;  and  who  shall  blame 
them  for  resenting  the  repeated  attacks  on  their 
people?  If  Americans  were  being  mobbed  daily  on 
the  streets  of  Tokio,  and  their  property  wantonly 
destroyed,  we  should  know  how  they  feel.  Yet  we  are 
treated  everywhere  with  the  utmost  courtesy  and 
kindliness,  not  only  in  the  shops,  but  on  the  streets  and 
highways.  The  wrong  is  ours,  and  they  are  showing 
great  forbearance.  One  comfort:  if  San  Francisco 
involves  us  in  war  she  will  be  the  first  and  principal 
sufferer.  Ah-eady  measures  are  taken  to  route  exports 
to  America  by  Seattle  and  to  boycott  San  Francisco. 

Rounding  the  southeasterly  point  of  Japan,  we  saw 
the  wreck  of  the  "Dakota,"  that  struck  a  rock  and 
sunk  there  last  February.  This  was  one  of  the  Great 
Northern  Line,  the  other  being  the  "Minnesota" 
that  was  established  two  years  ago  by  Jim  Hill. 
They  were  monster  boats,  20,000  tons  register,  28,000 
tons  gross,  the  biggest  on  the  Pacific.  Great  things 
were  predicted  of  what  they  would  do  for  our  carry- 
ing trade.  They  were  to  be  the  start  of  our  new  com- 
merce on  the  Pacific.  They  have  done  nothing  but 
lose  money  from  the  start.    The  "  Dakota  "  was  losing 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

fifty  thousand  a  month  when  she  sunk.  She  was  in- 
sured for  her  full  value,  three  and  one-half  millions. 
Sailor-men  wink  and  put  their  tongues  in  their  cheeks 
when  they  talk  of  it.  She  was  a  mile  out  of  her  course, 
in  full  daylight,  and  so  close  to  the  shore  that  people 
could  be  seen  on  shore  waving  her  off  and  seeking  to 
warn  her  of  the  danger.  She  struck  a  rock  that  broke 
her  back  and  sunk  in  tw6nty  minutes.  There  was 
not  even  time  to  get  her  mails  out.  The  passengers 
were  all  taken  off  by  native  boats — sampans — and 
no  lives  were  lost,  as  the  day  was  clear  and  the  sea 
smooth,  which  made  it  the  more  inexplicable.  The 
captain  lost  his  certificate,  but  the  insurance  money 
was  not  put  into  a  new  ship,  and  the  "Minnesota" 
remains  the  only  one  of  the  line. 

The  bay  of  Tokio  in  which  Yokohama  lies  is  su- 
perb; ten  miles  wide  at  its  entrance  and  narrowing 
gradually.  To  obtain  suitable  defenses  the  Japs  have 
built  three  artificial  islands,  mounted  with  disappear- 
ing guns,  so  that  the  harbor  is  impregnable  to  a  fleet 
attack.  This  is  true  of  all  their  harbors.  Each  is 
defended  by  every  device  possible.  Even  the  Inland 
Sea  is  lined  with  forts  and  modern  guns.  They  would 
never  be  guilty  of  the  almost  criminal  folly  of  our  gov- 

[44] 


JAPAN. 

ernment,  in  leaving  Hawaii  defenseless,  after  eight 
years  of  occupation,  during  which  we  have  gone 
through  with  one  war  on  the  Pacific.  It  is  the  key 
to  our  Pacific  littoral.  As  long  as  we  hold  it,  no  fleet 
save  England's  could  attack  us  there.  Held  by  a  for- 
eign power  as  a  base  and  coaling  station,  our  western 
front  would  be  defenseless.  Today  it  is  practically 
defenseless  to  a  foreign  fleet.  A  Japanese  force  could 
take  it  in  an  hour,  and  eat  up  all  our  warships  on  the 
Pacific  in  about  the  same  space  of  time.  In  fact, 
the  Japs  now  on  the  Islands,  numbering  20,000 — 
all  ex-soldiers — could  take  possession  of  this  great 
strategic  point  almost  without  a  struggle.  Uncle  Sam, 
the  unready,  always  saves  his  money  in  time  of  peace, 
is  always  caught  unprepared  for  war,  and  then  must 
pour  out  blood  and  gold  to  make  up  for  his  unwise 
and  foolish  economy.  If  war  ever  comes  with  Japan 
she  will  seize  the  Philippines  in  two  weeks,  Hawaii 
in  a  month,  and  with  our  coast  cities  at  her  mercy 
dictate  terms  unless  we  prefer  a  long  and  desolating 
war,  immense  property  loss,  and  thousands  of  lives, 
to  recover  the  lost  ground. 

We  had  two  days  ashore  at  Yokohama,  and  stayed 

[45] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

at  the  Grand  Hotel,  famous  all  over  the  East.  There 
are  other  good  hotels,  such  as  the  Club  and  the  Ori- 
ental Palace,  all  on  the  Bund  or  harbor  front,  but  the 
Grand  is  the  largest  and  most  comfortable.  The  view 
from  our  windows  of  the  harbor,  with  shipping,  sail- 
boats and  sampans,  the  grim  forts,  the  green  hills 
beyond,  the  innumerable  activities  of  the  port,  made 
a  kaleidoscope  of  unfailing  interest.  The  Grand  in 
a  way  is  a  club.  Many  of  the  foreign  residents  board 
there,  and  I  met  within  its  doors  the  representative 
men  of  the  foreign  interests. 

I  spent  most  of  my  time  for  the  two  days  in  a  rick- 
shaw, "for  to  admire  and  for  to  see."  The  standard 
conveyance  of  the  East  is  the  jinrikisha,  colloquially 
rickshaw.  Everyone  uses  them,  and  a  horse  convey- 
ance is  as  rare  as  an  auto.  I  saw  but  two  horse  car- 
riages in  Yokohama,  a  city  of  326,000.  All  the  haul- 
ing is  done  by  handcarts,  except  some  very  heavy 
stuff.  As  a  result,  the  streets  are  superlatively  clean, 
and  quiet  beyond  belief, — an  illustration  of  what  our 
cities  will  be  when  the  auto  banishes  the  horse  to  the 
country,  where  he  belongs. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  like  the  rickshaw  for  a  long  trip. 
It  is  tiring ;  but  for  the  city  it  is  delightful,  noiseless, 

[46] 


JAPAN. 

easy,  and  cheap.  Twenty-five  sen  an  hour  (12^  cents 
of  our  money)  is  the  price;  two  yen,  or  one  dollar,  by 
the  day.  The  yen  is  worth  50  cents  of  our  money,  and 
is  divided  into  100  sen, — a  very  convenient  currency 
when  you  get  used  to  it.  They  tell  me  that  about  five 
years  is  the  life  of  a  rickshaw-man;  as  enlargement 
of  the  heart  drives  them  into  other  occupations. 
They  go  from  five  to  six  miles  an  hour,  never  slacken 
except  for  a  hill,  and  run  with  a  peculiar  gait,  a  high 
knee  motion  that  seems  wasteful  of  strength  but  com- 
municates no  motion  to  the  rickshaw.  I  had  my 
picture  taken  in  one  and  printed  on  a  post  card.  This 
is  one  of  the  recognized  things  to  do  in  Yokohama. 

Delia,  a  colored  maid  of  one  of  the  ladies  of  the  ship, 
had  her  first  ride  in  a  rickshaw.  She  was  enthusiastic 
over  it,  and  told  her  mistress. 

"Miss  Lucy,  I  done  hiahed  one  of  dem  ripshaws 
and  made  dat  nigger  man  haul  me  all  ober  town  for 
fifty  centses." 

"WTiy,  Delia,  they  are  not  negroes,  they  are  Jap- 
anese." 

''All  same,  dey  looks  like  nigger  men  to  me." 

A.  is  from  "  Jawjah,"  and  she  classes  them  the  same 
way. 

[47] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

I  had  expected  to  find  Yokohama,  the  first  and  larg- 
est of  the  treaty  ports,  Europeanized.  The  fringe 
of  it  along  the  Bund  is,  but  it  is  only  a  fringe.  The 
moment  you  leave  this  fringe,  perhaps  two  blocks 
wide,  you  plunge  into  old  Japan, — narrow,  tortuous 
streets,  no  sidewalks,  every  one  walks  in  the  road. 
One-story  wooden  houses  with  open  fronts  and  the 
distinctive  quaintness  of  Japan. 

It  was  a  rainy  day,  and  every  one  wore  clogs,  a 
wooden  sandal  with  two  supports  transversely  placed 
an  inch  high  and  kept  on  by  a  thong  held  between  the 
first  and  second  toes.  No  one  wore  stockings,  and  the 
Japanese  foot  is  a  thing  to  admire  because  it  is  the 
natural  human  foot.  Not  only  has  it  never  been  dis- 
torted by  a  shoe,  but  it  is  scrupulously  clean,  polished 
and  pedicured  like  a  lady's  hand  with  us.  The 
rounded  heel  rosy  with  health  and  scrubbing,  each  toe 
perfect  and  slightly  parted  like  the  claws  of  a  bird. 

Once  in  a  while  you  see  a  man  in  European  dress, 
never  a  woman,  and  they  look  absurd.  The  Japanese 
dress  for  men  is  the  acme  of  comfort  and  freedom: 
short  drawers,  with  the  poorer  class  only  a  gee  string, 
a  kimono  looped  up  when  walking,  and  a  pair  of  straw 
sandals;    total  cost,  two  yen  or  thereabouts.     I,  in 

[48] 


JAPAN. 

my  high  collar,  two  shirts,  a  coat,  shoes,  and  all  the 
rest,  envied  every  one  I  met. 

The  dress  for  the  women  is  ungraceful.  The  huge 
sash  looped  at  the  back  spoils  the  figure.  The  tightly 
draped  kimono  hampers  their  movements,  and  be- 
sides it  is  considered  ladylike  to  toe  in  and  take  step 
of  about  six  inches,  and  so  a  Japanese  maiden  totter- 
ing along  on  her  clogs  toeing  in  with  mincing  steps 
is  not  lovely. 

In  the  country  the  women  tuck  up  their  kimonos, 
leave  them  open  to  the  waist,  and  stride  along  like  a 
man. 

The  display  of  female  anatomy  on  the  country 
roads  is  a  little  startling  at  first,  but  one  gets  used  to  it. 

Japanese  towns  seem  to  be  one  big  department 
store.  None  of  the  houses  are  over  two  stories. 
Every  one  seems  to  keep  a  shop  and  live  over  it  or 
behind  it.  All  the  trades  and  occupations  are  car- 
ried on  in  plain  view.  The  fronts  are  mere  shutters 
that  fold  up  and  disappear.  The  household  economy, 
the  bedroom,  the  kitchen,  the  babies  sprawling  on 
the  dirt  floor,  are  all  in  evidence;  while  in  the  front 
the  carpenter  works  or  the  tradesman  chaffers  with 
his  customers. 

[49] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Buying  in  Japan  is  a  matter  of  much  debate,  always 
courteous  and  apparently  unending.  No  one  asks 
the  price  he  expects  to  receive.  It  varies  from  two 
to  four  times  its  real  worth. 

F.  wanted  a  miniature  tortoise-shell  rickshaw.  The 
owner  asked  five  yen  for  it.  The  governor  got  it  for 
her  for  one  yen  fifty.  Another  passenger  priced  a  vase. 
It  was  four  yen.    He  offered  one  yen  for  it,  and  got  it. 

We  stopped  in  a  dry-goods  store  where  F.  wanted 
to  buy  a  kimono.  The  floor  was  of  dirt ;  a  platform  a 
couple  of  feet  from  the  ground  covered  with  matting 
was  the  counter.  There  the  merchant  and  his  as- 
sistants, aU  barefooted,  squatted  and  displayed  their 
wares.  Everything  was  clean,  every  one  soft-voiced, 
courteous  and  smiling.  The  wrapping-paper  was  a 
work  of  art,  the  string  a  curiosity,  and  the  smile  and 
bow  that  went  with  the  purchase  inimitable.  The 
Japanese  bow  is  in  a  class  by  itself,  a  stiff  incHnation 
from  the  waist  with  a  quick  jerk  backward. 

F.  and  I  were  riding  through  Old  Yokohama,  and 
the  rickshaw  men  invited  us  to  stop  at  a  tea-house. 
I  had  my  doubts  as  to  the  respectability  of  such  places, 
but  as  F.  was  with  me  I  felt  safe.    We  stopped  at 

[60' 


JAPAN. 

a  beautifully  carved  door,  just  inside  of  which  was 
a  platform  covered  with  spotless  matting.  Three  tiny- 
maidens  prostrated  themselves  before  us  with  many 
genuflexions  and  "ohayos"  (ohayo  is  Japanese  for 
"  How  do  you  do?  "),  and  proceeded  to  induce  our  hon- 
orable feet  into  huge  felt  slippers  so  that  our  barbaric 
shoes  might  not  mar  the  polished  floor  nor  soil  the 
painfully  clean  matting.  We  went  up  a  little  flight 
of  steps  and  into  a  room  like  an  exquisite  toy  house. 
The  floor  was  of  polished  dark  wood.  The  walls  of 
sliding  screens  beautifully  decorated,  and  even  the 
little  finger-holes  to  manipulate  them  elaborately 
carved  inside.  In  the  center  was  a  table  of  carved 
cherry-wood  a  foot  high.  We  sat  on  cushions,  or 
squatted,  rather,  while  they  brought  the  tea.  I  never 
in  my  life  felt  so  like  a  bull  in  a  China  shop.  My 
bulky  figure  in  American  clothes  seemed  so  big  and 
clumsy  and  awkward,  I  was  afraid  to  move  for  fear 
this  toy  house  would  fall  down.  I  was  a  solecism, 
an  impropriety.  I  felt  as  one  does  when  he  dreams  of 
being  in  the  street  in  his  shirt.  A  lacquer  tray  was 
brought  in  with  an  earthen  teapot  with  tea-leaves  in 
it.  A  bowl  of  hot  water,  two  tiny  Satsuma  cups, 
priceless  in  our  country,  and  a  plate  of  little  cakes  of 

[51] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

fantastic  shapes  with  sugar  devices  on  them.  One 
of  the  toy  girls  poured  hot  water  on  the  tea-leaves, 
closed  it  tightly  for  a  moment,  and  then  poured  out  an 
infusion  that  perfumed  the  room.  This  was  tea, 
strong,  invigorating,  and  yet  delicately  flavored. 
Tea  will  not  stand  a  sea  voyage,  however  packed.  It 
loses  something  of  that  ethereal  flavor,  and  you  drink 
real  tea  nowhere  but  where  it  is  grown.  The  Russians 
know  this,  and  bring  all  their  tea  overland. 

In  the  meanwhile,  as  the  young  ladies  spoke  no 
English  we  were  trying  to  learn  Japanese.  Tea  is 
"ocha."  They  laughed  at  our  pronunciation,  and 
giggled  at  everything,  but  such  a  soft  little  giggle — 
just  a  toy  giggle,  like  everything  else.  The  girls  were 
immensely  interested  in  F.'s  clothes  and  ornaments. 
They  examined  her  rings  and  jewelry,  felt  the  texture 
of  her  dress,  and  asked  the  name  of  everything.  In- 
vestigated her  shoes  and  stockings,  and  bowed  and 
giggled  over  everything.  Once  the  Doctor  took  two 
ladies  to  a  tea-house  and  had  the  same  performance. 
They  examined  everything.  Finally  one  of  them  threw 
one  of  the  ladies'  dress  to  her  knees,  to  see  how  far  the 
embroidery  went.  Doubtless  she  would  have  gone 
into  the  lingerie,  too,  if  the  lady  had  not  jumped  up  and 

[52] 


JAPAN. 

left.  Finally,  I  paid  the  bill  and  carefully  removed  my- 
self from  the  toy  room  without  breaking  anything, — 
had  my  slippers  removed,  and  left.  The  last  I  saw 
the  three  little  creatures  were  on  all  fours,  bobbing  and 
ducking  and  murmuring  "  Sayonara" — that's  good-by ; 
and  one  of  them  who  had  evidently  learned  the  phrase 
by  heart  repeated  her  only  "Ingleesh":  "Will  you 
please  to  have  the  honorable  kindness  to  come  again?  " 

Your  first  caller  at  a  Yokohama  hotel  is  the  tailor, 
a  half-dozen.  He  brings  his  samples,  takes  your  meas- 
ure or  the  garment  you  wish  copied,  and  in  twenty- 
four  hours  you  have  it  perfectly  reproduced  at  a  price 
that  seems  absurd.  But  you  must  be  careful  about 
the  garment  you  want  reproduced,  for  he  will  copy 
every  detail.  If  there  is  a  patch  or  rent  sewed  up 
you  will  find  it  exactly  reproduced  in  the  new  garment. 
Their  work  is  exquisite,  and  the  materials  hardly  ob- 
tainable at  home. 

F.  got  a  skirt  of  sheer-grass  linen  beautifully  made 
for  less  than  the  cost  of  making  her  American  skirt. 
I  bought  some  linen  clothes,  exact  copies  of  my  home 
clothes,  for  about  the  price  of  overalls  in  Kansas. 

If  you  want  shoes  or  anything  else  you  need  not 
[53] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

leave  your  room.    A  boy  comes  with  an  assortment 

from  which  you  choose.     The  way  of  the  East,  how 

curious  it  is ;   and  talk  of  conservatism,  here  you  find 

the  real  article.    The  little  verse  at  the  head  of  this 

chapter  is  a  favorite  in  the  East : 

"  A  fool  lies  here 
Who  tried  to  hustle  the  East." 

The  Japanese  and  Chinese  laborers  are  perhaps 
the  most  industrious  in  the  world,  the  business  men 
the  most  leisurely.  Business  is  a  heart-breaking 
procrastination  for  Americans  when  they  first  come 
out  here.  They  try  to  "hustle  the  East"  when  they 
first  come  out.  If  they  stay  they  give  it  up,  or  else 
there's  "a  tombstone  white."  What  is  the  reason 
for  this — conservatism?  Primarily,  religion.  The 
ancestor-worship  of  both.  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
refer  to  this  later,  but  for  the  present  pass  it  with  the 
one  remark  that  no  other  religion  has  endured  so 
long,  influenced  vitally  so  many  millions,  or  today 
holds  undisputed  sway  over  so  many  of  the  earth's 
inhabitants.  It  is  the  most  vital  fact  about  these  two 
races,  and  it  interposes  an  unsuperable  bar  to  the 
adoption  of  Christianity  and  accounts  for  the  utter 
failure  of  missionary  work  out  here. 

[54] 


JAPAN. 

The  old  way  is  the  way.  Superficially  the  Japanese 
are  imitative. 

When  their  government  and  military  system  broke 
down  in  contact  with  Western  civilization  in  1868, 
they  reformed  both.  They  have  adopted  Occidental 
government,  guns  and  ships.  They  buy  our  machin- 
ery and  use  it.  But  when  the  soldier  in  his  khaki  or 
the  man-of-war's  man  in  his  white  duck  goes  home  he 
strips  off  his  borrowed  clothes  and  reverts  to  the 
kimono.  The  operative  in  the  cotton  mill,  tending 
American  looms,  goes  back  to  a  house  whose  form, 
furnishing  and  decoration  are  older  in  type  than  Chris- 
tianity. On  whose  walls  are  his  ancestral  tablets 
with  their  daily  offerings  of  food  and  flowers  reminding 
him  constantly  of  the  Old  Way,  the  way  of  the  East. 

The  "awakening  of  Japan"  is  on  the  surface, — 
material,  superficial.  Beneath  it  is  the  unassailable 
conservatism,  racial,  religious,  profound,  inexpugn- 
able. 

And  so  the  Foreign  Devils  who  come  here  and  suc- 
ceed fall  into  the  way  of  the  East;  life  is  leisurely, 
slow-going. 

There  is  always  time  for  a  drink  and  a  smoke. 
Competitors  will  not  seize  the  business  meanwhile — 

[65] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

they  are  doing  the  same.  It  is  not  at  all  the  mana- 
na"  of  the  Mexican.  They  are  simply  doing  busi- 
ness in  their  own  way, — deliberate,  careful,  thorough. 
They  are  so  old,  these  people.  They  measure  their 
time  by  cycles.  Their  written  history  began  when  we 
were  naked  savages.    A  year  is  nothing. 

An  artist  works  ten  years  on  a  single  tiny  piece  of 
Satsuma  or  Cloisonne.  What  of  that?  The  result 
is  perfection.  In  every  house  the  ancestral  tablets 
show  a  lineage  older  than  kings  can  boast  in  the  Oc- 
cident. 

"A  thousand  years  is  but  a  watch  in  the  night." 
There  is  so  much  time.  If  Kamamura  does  not 
finish  the  vase  or  the  carving,  his  son  will.  These 
ephemeral  Western  people  that  come  and  go  with 
their  upstart  religions,  and  mushroom  monarchies, 
their  dynasties  that  rise  and  fall,  their  institutions 
that  change  and  decay  and  disappear, — what  are 
they  to  a  people  whose  sovereign  traces  his  lineage 
direct  from  the  sun,  whose  religion  is  older  than  the 
sites  of  any  of  our  cities,  whose  social  fabric  goes  back 
to  an  antiquity  so  remote  that  the  Deluge  is  news  for 
an  extra  and  the  Fall  of  Man,  Modern  History?  Mere 
ephemeridse,  things  of  a  day,  creatures  of  an  hour. 

[56] 


JAPAN. 

When  the  American  Republic  is  but  a  name,  when 
Macaulay's  New-Zealander  is  sitting  on  London  Bridge 
and  viewing  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's,  the  way  of  the 
East  will  be  the  same. 

We  left  Yokohama  Thursday  morning,  and,  skirt- 
ing southern  Japan,  reached  Kobe  on  the  bay  of  that 
name  Friday  morning,  and  spent  the  day  there. 

There  is  not  much  to  see  in  Kobe.  It  is  merely  a 
great  shipping  point,  but  its  situation  is  wonderfully 
beautiful.  It  lies  in  a  crescent  at  the  head  of  the  bay 
backed  by  great  broken  wooded  hills  intensely  green. 
Back  of  the  town  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  water- 
falls in  Japan,  which  we  visited  by  rickshaw,  dined 
at  the  Oriental,  and  went  back  to  the  ship  in  a  sam- 
pan. Like  the  rickshaw,  the  sampan  is  peculiar  to 
the  East.  It  is  of  all  sizes,  but  the  type  is  very  sharp 
forward,  nearly  flat-bottomed,  and  propelled  by  scull- 
ing. The  oarsman  stands  erect  in  the  stern,  and  with 
a  wooden  pin  in  the  handle  of  the  oar  uses  it  exactly 
as  a  fish  uses  his  tail.  In  rowing,  the  effort  in  re- 
covering is  lost  motion.  There  is  no  lost  motion 
here.  The  man  pushes  and  pulls,  and  every  motion 
impels  the  boat.     It  is  astonishing  how  fast  one  of 

[57] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

these  men  will  send  a  loaded  sampan  along.  They 
are  very  seaworthy  and  stanch,  and  in  them  the  Jap- 
anese fishermen  ply  their  trade  at  fearful  distances 
from  the  land.  By  the  way,  the  waters  of  Japan 
swarm  with  fishermen,  as  fish  is  the  principal  diet  of 
her  millions,  and  these  fishermen  are  a  caste.  Very 
low  in  the  social  scale,  something  like  the  Pariahs  of 
India. 

Buddhism,  which  is  hardly  a  religious  force  in  Japan 
today,  was  at  one  time  strong  enough  to  secure  the 
abolition  of  animal  food,  and  fish  takes  its  place. 

But  with  curious  inconsistency  the  Buddhist  who 
will  not  take  animal  life  made  the  fishermen  outcast 
because  they  violate  the  law  of  Buddha,  but  eats  the 
fish  the  fisherman  h^s  killed. 

At  Kobe  we  entered  the  wonderful  Inland  Sea  of 
Japan,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  bodies  of  water  in 
the  world.  It  separates  the  southern  islands  from 
the  northern  group,  and  varies  in  width  from  places 
where  we  were  out  of  sight  of  land  to  places  where  we 
could  have  thrown  a  stone  to  either  shore.  It  has 
been  compared  to  many  other  beautiful  spots.  The 
Swiss  and  Italian  lakes  are  smaller,  their  hilltops 
covered  with  hoary  castles  or  beautiful  palaces,  their 

[68J 


JAPAN. 

slopes  clothed  with  vines  and  backed  by  mountains 
whose  perennial  snows  lend  a  charm  to  an  exquisite 
combination  of  foreground  and  perspective,  unpar- 
alleled elsewhere. 

The  hills  of  Japan  are  rugged,  not  high  nor  awe- 
inspiring;  their  slopes  lack  the  sophisticated  charm 
that  cultivation  has  given  to  the  Rhine,  Maggiore,  or 
the  lakes  of  the  Four  Cantons.  The  human  interest, 
the  legend  and  story,  the  historical  fabric  that  clothes 
every  creek  and  hilltop,  are  wanting  here.  It  is 
beautiful  but  uninteresting.  Its  hills  and  islands, 
its  fishing  villages  and  tiny  farms,  climbing  the  hills 
or  hung  by  stone-waU  terraces  to  apparently  inac- 
cessible slopes,  are  marvels  of  patient  industry,  but 
they  are  not  beautiful  or  interesting.  It  is  a  danger- 
ous sea,  full  of  rocks  and  islands,  with  swift  and 
treacherous  currents,  and  every  saUor  breathes  freer 
when  he  is  out  of  it.  Our  crew  stood  for  hours  by 
both  anchors,  ready  to  let  go  at  a  moment's  notice, 
for  there  are  places  where  a  momentary  stoppage 
of  the  engines  would  mean  sure  destruction  unless 
the  anchors  should  hold. 

Just  out  of  Moji  we  passed  the  wreck  of  a  "tall 
ship,"  a  steamer  gored  by  a  rock  and  sunk  when  but 

[59] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

200  feet  out  of  her  course,  and  within  a  stone's-throw 
of  the  shore. 

Just  at  dark  we  entered  the  Sea  of  Japan  and  passed 
within  sight  of  the  water  where  Togo  destroyed  the 
Russian  fleet,  and  saw  the  sun  set  behind  that  island 
under  which  with  marvelous  skill  he  hid  his  ships 
until  he  was  ready  to  pounce  upon  the  Russians. 
We  awoke  at  daybreak  Sunday  morning  in  the  open- 
ing of  Nagasaki  Harbor. 

After  inspection  we  moved  up  and  anchored  off  the 
town.  Everyone  has  heard  of  Nagasaki,  as  it  is  the 
chief  naval  station  of  the  Islands  and  cut  a  great 
figure  in  the  recent  war.  Besides,  the  principal  coal 
mines  of  the  islands  are  near  here,  and  Nagasaki  is 
the  coaling  station  for  nearly  all  lines  on  the  Pacific. 
We  coaled  there,  and  the  operation  was  the  most  in- 
teresting thing  I  have  seen  in  the  Islands. 

We  moored  in  the  midst  of  a  whole  fleet  of  coal 
barges,  but  there  was  no  apparatus  visible  to  lift  the 
coal  from  the  barges  to  the  ship.  "Watch,"  said 
the  Governor;  "you  will  see  something  curious." 
As  we  swung  into  our  moorings  the  crowd  of  barges 
moved  into  orderly  array  about  us,  stern  to  the  ship, 
pointing  outwardly,  twelve  on  each  side.    This,  which 


COALING  AT  NAGASAKI. 


JAPAN. 

with  any  other  people  would  have  taken  unlimited 
cursing  and  quarreling,  was  accomplished  without  an 
altercation,  each  helping  the  other  with  a  push  here, 
a  drag  on  the  line  there.  The  moment  the  stern  of 
a  barge  touched  the  ship  a  man  swarmed  up  a  rope 
to  the  rail  of  the  main  deck.  A  board  two  feet  wide 
and  four  feet  long  is  handed  to  him,  another  joins 
him,  and  they  swing  this  board  like  a  painter's  ladder 
with  ropes  tied  to  the  rail  just  below  the  port-hole 
that  is  to  receive  the  coal.  Three  feet  below  this 
another  is  hung,  but  this  is  wider  and  projects  beyond 
the  upper  one.  Another  and  another  is  strung,  till 
the  barges  are  reached,  and  then  a  stout  bamboo  is 
lashed  to  the  outer  corners  of  these  steps — and  there 
you  are,  a  strong,  steady  flight  of  steps  built  in  ten 
minutes  without  a  nail.  Still  you  wonder — the  steps 
are  too  far  apart  to  climb ;  but  almost  as  soon  as  the 
steps  are  finished  men  and  women  both  swarm  up  and 
station  themselves,  two  on  each  stage  of  the  ladder. 
Baskets  without  handles  are  passed  up  from  hand  to 
hand  till  the  man  on  the  top  step  empties  them  into 
the  bunker.  It  is  like  a  bucket  brigade  at  a  fire, 
only  swifter  and  more  perfect  than  any  bucket  bri- 
gade you  ever  saw.    Each  knows  just  exactly  what 

[61] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

to  do,  and  each  does  it.  Even  the  children  work, 
picking  up  lumps  too  big  for  the  shovels.  The  opening 
of  the  largest  bunker  is  on  the  bridge  deck,  twenty- 
five  feet  above  the  water,  and  half  a  dozen  barges 
unload  into  that.  I  counted  the  baskets  going  up 
and  they  averaged  thirty  to  the  minute,  half  a  bushel 
dumped  every  two  seconds,  not  a  motion  wasted,  not 
a  false  move,  the  perfection  of  physical  effort,  women 
and  men  alike. 

It  seems  primitive  and  absurd  in  these  days  of 
steam,  but  the  engineer  tells  me  that  coaling  is  quicker 
and  cheaper  here  than  in  any  other  port  in  the  world. 
Hand  labor  here  is  cheaper  than  steam,  and  the  "Nip- 
pon" took  in  1800  tons  of  coal  in  seven  hours.  It 
was  a  wonderful  sight,  the  entire  side  of  the  ship 
covered  with  them,  a  stream  of  baskets  ascending 
from  each  barge,  never  hastening  but  never  pausing. 
The  men  are  paid  35  cents  a  day,  our  money,  the 
women  ten, — the  same  disproportion  the  world  over, 
— and  the  women  do  as  much  as  the  men ;  and  such 
good-nature,  such  jokes  and  laughter,  it  sounds  like 
a  merry-making,  and  never  a  basket  dropped  or  a 
lump  lost. 

Nagasaki  clings  to  a  range  of  hills  rising  from  a  beau- 
[62] 


JAPAN. 

tiful  land-locked  harbor.  We  took  rickshaws,  two 
men  to  each,  and  went  over  the  hills  to  Mogi,  a  pic- 
turesque fishing  village  on  the  other  side  of  the  island. 
It  is  about  seven  miles  over  the  mountain  by  a  mag- 
nificent road,  and  I  think  the  most  interesting  ride 
I  ever  took.  Going  up,  one  man  pulls  and  the  other 
pauses;  going  down,  the  man  behind  holds  back 
with  the  rope. 

The  road  winds  up  and  up  through  rice-fields  clean 
to  the  top.  Here  is  Japanese  agriculture  at  its  best. 
The  fields  are  tiny,  some  of  them  not  over  10x30  feet. 
In  some  of  them  they  were  plowing  with  a  bullock 
and  a  plow  like  the  first  one  Abel  used.  In  others 
they  were  cutting  out  last  year's  roots  with  a  kind  of 
mattock,  and  in  others  the  rice  was  just  up.  There 
were  a  few  patches  of  wheat  and  many  gardens. 

The  rice-fields  are  irrigated  from  a  little  mountain 
stream  that,  rising  far  up  in  the  hills,  is  led  from  field 
to  field,  dropping  from  one  to  another  by  stone  con- 
duits centuries  old,  not  a  drop  wasted.  We  saw  two 
horses  on  the  road  drawing  low-wheel  wagons,  a  few 
bullocks  with  loads  on  their  backs,  and  countless  men 
and  women  carrying  baskets  swung  from  a  pole  over 
their  shoulder,  the  women  half-naked,  striding  along 

[63] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

under  burdens  that  would  stagger  an  ordinary  man. 
All  cheerful,  friendly,  and  courteous. 

Their  little  huts  perched  on  the  hillside,  with  flow- 
ers all  about,  are  models  of  neatness ;  surely  they  are 
a  wonderful  people,  making  the  most  of  nothing, 
doing  their  work  and  living  on  less  than  a  family  in 
America  wastes. 

The  road  descends  to  Mogi  through  a  magnificent 
bamboo  forest,  to  my  mind  one  of  the  most  graceful 
trees  in  the  world. 

Everywhere  greenness  and  cleanliness,  murmuring 
brooks  and  Httle  waterfalls,  purple  hills  with  mist- 
wreaths  all  about  them,  and  the  blue  sea  beyond, — 
a  wonderful  sight,  with  interest  in  every  turn  of  the 
road. 

We  left  Nagasaki  for  Manila  Sunday  night ;  sailed 
down  past  the  east  coast  of  Formosa,  and  Tuesday 
night  ran  into  a  typhoon.  Tuesday  was  a  tropical 
day.  The  little  breeze  there  was  was  behind  us,  and 
it  was  damp,  sticky  and  disagreeable  on  deck  and  in- 
tolerable below.  The  air  was  murky,  with  frequent 
downpours  of  rain  and  charged  with  electricity. 
Everyone  was  cross  and  peevish,  and  when  at  five 

[64] 


JAPAN. 

o'clock  the  wind  suddenly  came  out  of  the  west  fresh 
and  strong  it  was  a  heavenly  relief;  but  the  old-timers 
looked  grave. 

The  barometer  was  falling  fast,  and  when  at  dark 
Capt.  Filmer  suddenly  turned  and  pointing  north- 
easterly began  steaming  dead  slow  but  squarely  away 
from  Manila,  we  knew  there  was  trouble  coming. 
The  typhoon  is  peculiar  to  these  waters,  and  is  the 
most  dreaded  storm  the  sailor  knows.  It  is  a  vast 
tornado  from  five  to  six  hundred  miles  across,  rotary, 
of  course;  its  vortex  a  dead  calm  with  terrific  seas, 
and  its  outer  fringe  always  carries  a  heavy  rain  and 
electric  disturbance,  the  whole  body  of  the  storm 
moving  slowly,  usually  from  southwest  to  northeast. 

The  aim  of  sailors  is  to  dodge  them  or  keep  as  near 
the  outer  edge  as  possible.  The  captain  judged  that 
the  main  storai  was  to  the  south  of  us  and  mo\'ing  off 
into  the  Pacific.  Besides,  we  were  approaching  the 
strait  between  Formosa  and  Luzon,  and  he  wanted 
more  searoom.  Given  that  and  good  engines  and 
there  is  not  so  much  danger.  But  even  a  momentary 
breakdown  for  the  engines  is  fatal.  By  ten  o'clock 
we  were  fairly  into  it.  There  was  an  almost  continu- 
ous glare  of  hghtning  that  showed  a  troubled,  lumpy 

[65J 


THE    FAR    EASTTODAY. 

sea  full  of  tossing  white-caps.  The  wind  blew  first 
from  one  quarter  and  then  another,  almost  boxing 
the  compass,  and  sometimes  cool  and  sometimes  as 
hot  as  a  furnace.  The  ship  did  not  roll  much,  and  I 
went  to  sleep.  I  was  awakened  by  a  terrific  slatting 
and  banging  overhead,  where  the  sailors  were  taking 
down  the  awnings.  A  little  while  later  I  was  awak- 
ened again,  by  my  table  going  over  with  a  crash. 
The  wind  had  ceased  and  just  then  men  rushed  by 
our  cabin,  closing  the  heavy  shutters.  They  worked 
with  feverish  haste,  calling  to  each  other  in  the  pitchy 
darkness.  The  engines  were  moving  so  slowly  they 
could  not  be  felt,  but  the  ship  was  rolling  violently 
and  the  wind  came  again.  This  was  the  typhoon,  and 
the  Lord  deliver  me  from  another.  All  night  the 
wind  shrieked  and  howled  and  the  spray  battered 
the  front  of  our  cabin  and  flew  hissing  past  our  win- 
dows. I  could  see  nothing,  hear  nothing  but  the  roar 
of  the  wind,  the  hammering  of  the  waves;  and  the 
tremendous  concert  finally  lulled  me  to  sleep. 

Day  gave  us  a  magnificent  sight  of  angry  clouds 
and  rushing  seas,  a  welter  of  green  and  white  foam. 
The  wind  was  so  terrific  that  it  really  kept  the  sea 
down  temporarily:    whenever  a  wave  raised  itself 

[66] 


JAPAN. 

higher  than  the  others  it  was  torn  to  foam  and  the 
air  was  full  of  spray  and  flying  spume.  It  was  im- 
possible to  face  it  except  from  shelter.  By  night  the 
wind  had  moderated  and  the  typhoon  turned  south- 
ward. That  night  the  sea  got  up  in  earnest,  and  the 
rolling  and  the  pitching  were  frightful.  Twice  I  was 
pitched  out  of  my  sofa  bed  onto  the  floor.  In  the 
night  one  of  the  boats  overhead  broke  its  lashings 
where  it  was  swung  from  the  davits  and  it  seemed  as 
though  the  world  was  coming  to  an  end.  After  a 
long  time  I  went  to  sleep,  and  about  seven  o'clock 
was  awakened  by  a  terrific  crash  forward.  The  steer- 
age galley  smoke-stack  and  three  of  the  ventilators 
had  carried  away  and  were  battering  around  the  deck. 
The  ship  stopped,  and  a  crowd  of  sailors  swarmed  out 
and  worked  desperately  to  close  the  openings. 

We  steamed  slow  for  a  while,  and  then  stopped. 
"You'll  see  some  fun  now,"  said  one  of  the  officers  to 
me ;  "  the  old  man  is  tired  of  loafing  and  he  is  going 
to  drive  her."  The  men  swarmed  forward  again,  and 
removed  the  remaining  ventilators  on  the  forward 
deck,  took  down  everything  removable  and  lashed  and 
relashed  everything  else;  and  then  we  started  fuU 
speed  ahead. 

[67] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

That  was  a  day  to  be  remembered;  the  wind  had 
gone  down  and  the  sea  come  up.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
two  typhoons  had  passed  over  these  waters  a  day 
apart;  we  missed  the  second  by  a  few  miles,  but 
crossed  its  track.  The  effect  of  the  two  was  a  ter- 
rific sea,  not  the  long  rollers  of  the  Atlantic,  but 
broken  tumuli,  great  hills  of  water  heaped  and  tossing 
and  breaking,  rising  and  disappearing.  WTien  two 
would  strike  each  other  there  would  be  a  perfect  geyser 
of  foam  spouting  a  hundred  feet  in  the  air,  and  through 
this  hellish  sea  the  "Nippon"  plunged  and  bucked 
full  steam  ahead.  Sometimes  when  a  sea  would  strike 
her  bow,  she  would  stagger  and  stop  like  a  man  struck 
in  the  face,  and  then  the  big  screws  would  drive  her 
into  it  again.  The  "Nippon"  is  very  sharp  forward, 
built  to  slip  through  the  water  with  a  minimum  of 
force ;  sometimes  she  would  cut  clear  through  one  of 
these  hills  of  water  and  it  would  rush  over  her  bows 
and  strike  the  deck  with  a  noise  like  thunder  and  go 
pouring  aft  waist-deep.  Sometimes  in  its  downward 
descent  the  sheer  of  her  bows  would  flatten  the 
mountain  of  water  to  spray.  That  was  a  sight  to  see, 
a  perfect  cloud  of  white  foam  rising  fifty  feet  in  the 
air  and  drenching  the  ship  clear  to  the  crows'-nest. 

[68] 


JAPAN. 

All  day  the  lower  decks  were  awash  and  the  upper 
swept  with  salt  spray.  It  seemed  a  miracle  that  this 
big  lump  of  a  ship,  ten  thousand  tons  weight,  could  be 
tossed  about  like  a  cork,  and  it  seemed  another  mir- 
acle that  she  could  be  driven  through  such  sea. 

WeU,  I  have  seen  one  storm  at  sea.  I  have  always 
wanted  to,  and  am  satisfied.  This  was  no  gale — ^it 
was  the  best  effort  of  the  storm  king.  The  biggest 
thing  old  Boreas  can  do. 

In  November,  1905,  a  t5q)hoon  in  Manila  blew  110 
miles  an  hour.  The  typhoon  in  Hong  Kong  last  Sep- 
tember beached  every  ship  in  the  harbor,  swept  it 
clear,  killed  thousands  of  people,  and  destroyed  prop- 
erty by  the  million  doUars.  To  show  the  force  of  it, 
a  big  German  ship  had  both  anchors  out  and  was 
steaming  full  speed  against  the  storm  to  relieve  the 
strain  on  them.  The  storm  snapped  her  cables  and 
blew  her  high  and  dry. 

A  French  man-of-war  and  two  torpedo-boats  and 
innumerable  other  craft  were  sunk  or  blown  ashore. 

The  typhoon  season  lasts  from  June  till  November, 
and  makes  these  the  most  perilous  waters  in  the  world. 

We  may  meet  another  before  we  leave  the  China 
Sea,  but  we  hope  not. 

[69] 


MANILA. 

I  shall  be  very  loquacious  concerning  Manila, 
doubtless  prosy ;  there  is  so  much  to  say,  so  much  to 
learn  and  unlearn. 

Since  the  war  was  over,  there  has  been  a  Great 
Silence  over  these  Islands;  we  hear  nothing,  know 
nothing.  Now  and  then  a  small  news  item  leaks  out 
some  ray  of  light  through  the  darkness,  but  it  may  be 
safely  generalized  that  the  average  American  knows 
more  of  Paris  and  the  Congo  than  he  does  of  these, 
our  Islands. 

So  I  hope  to  be  excused  if  I  write  at  length  about  the 
facts  as  I  found  them. 

Well,  the  first  and  biggest  fact  about  the  Islands  is 
William  H.  Taft.  Out  here  his  figure,  which  to  us  at 
home  is  very  vague,  little  known, — ^less  so,  perhaps, 
than  any  other  man  in  public  life, — ^looms  very  large, 
almost  gigantic,  very  familiar;  a  clear,  distinct  sil- 
houette of  the  man  who  is  bound  to  be  a  great  figure 
in  American  life.  The  Island  Government  is  Taft; 
whatever  there  is  of  good  or  ill  in  the  American  oc- 

[70] 


MANILA. 


cupation  is  Taft.  His  big  thumb  is  on  these  islands. 
His  word  is  law;  his  will  is  fiat;  he  is  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end.  "When  the  waters  and  the 
earth  were  parted  and  the  world  that  was  without 
form  and  void  was  created  out  here,  Taft  was  It. 
He  was  the  military,  then  the  civil.  Governor, 
and  now,  as  Secretary  of  War,  is  more  omnipotent 
than  ever.  Roosevelt  leaves  it  all  to  him.  He  ap- 
points and  discharges  Governors  and  Councils ;  noth- 
ing is  done  unless  he  says,  "Let  it  be  so."  The  pres- 
ent Governor,  Smith,  was  a  rather  small  California 
lawyer,  a  weak  man  who  refers  everything  to  Taft, 
a  mere  figurehead.  He  cannot  appoint  a  clerk  with- 
out Taft's  "0.  K."  Like  many  strong  men,  Taft 
likes  not  strong  men  under  him.  Ide  and  Wright, 
next  to  Taft  the  strongest  Governors  we  have  had 
here,  opposed  Taft  and  lost  their  heads. 

So  Taft  is  the  Philippine  Government;  but  mark 
you,  the  impulse  of  that  Government,  the  ideal  to 
which  it  works,  comes  not  from  Taft,  but  from  a  great 
American  who  is  in  his  grave, — William  McKinley. 

McKinley,  who  was  one  of  the  clearest-headed 
politicians  we  ever  had  in  America  when  he  dealt 
with  the  Caucasian  mind,  but  knew  nothing  of  the 

[71] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Asiatic,  conceived  a  lofty  idea  of  our  mission  in  the 
Orient.  We  were  to  take  the  downtrodden  FiHpino 
by  the  hand,  raise  him  up,  guide  his  tottering  foot- 
steps in  the  path  of  self-government,  and  finally  erect 
a  Filipino  Republic.  And  so  Taft,  following  this 
altruistic  concept,  has  been  running  a  kindergarten 
to  teach  the  Filipinos  how  to  stand  alone  and  how  to 
govern  themselves;  and  his  mistakes,  which  are  not 
few,  are  mostly  traceable  to  this  fundamental  racial 
mistake.  For,  let  me  say  at  the  outset,  and  set  it 
down  as  a  fact,  indisputable  and  not  to  be  questioned, 
that  the  Filipino  Republic  is  about  as  far  off  as  the 
moon,  and  just  about  as  attainable. 

In  the  first  place,  there  has  never  been  a  working 
republic,  a  self-governing,  autonomous  race  within 
the  tropics,  in  all  the  history  of  the  world.  The  qual- 
ities that  make  for  self-government,  cool  blood,  self- 
control,  willingness  to  yield  to  the  majority,  do  not 
exist  along  the  line.  They  are  the  products  of  a 
colder  clime,  more  austere  conditions.  Our  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  with  all  these  qualities,  was  at  school  for 
2000  years  before  we  attained  self-government.  Have 
we  attained  it?  After  all,  it  is  yet  an  experiment 
with  us,  and  our  schooling  goes  on  from  day  to  day. 

[72] 


MANILA. 

In  short,  a  republic  is  temperamental.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  intelligence,  but  of  character.  A  charac- 
ter that  the  Filipinos  wholly  lack,  likely  must  ever 
lack.  Taft  knows  it  now.  In  his  later  pronounce- 
ments he  has  thrown  cold  water  on  Filipino'  independ- 
ence, backed  clean  away  from  his  earlier  promises 
and  hopes  held  out  to  them,  and  as  a  result,  is  to-day 
unpopular  with  the  Filipinos.  They  are  awaiting 
his  visit  in  September  with  eagerness.  He  will  have 
to  declare  himself,  and  he  can  say  but  one  thing, 
and  that  is,  that  they  must  wait,  wait,  till  we  are 
ready.  He  has  already  said  that  independence  can- 
not come  with  this  generation,  that  it  wUl  take  time 
and  education ;  but  it  will  take  more  than  education, 
it  will  take  a  re-formation  of  the  Filipino  character. 
We  did  not  learn  self-government  out  of  books,  nor 
will  they. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say  something  about  the  Fil- 
ipino. I  am  not  speaking  from  personal  knowledge 
alone,  but  from  the  testimony  of  those  who  know, 
men  who  have  been  in  the  Far  East  for  a  generation, 
men  of  all  nationalities,  men  who  know  all  the  races 
of  the  Pacific  intimately,  and  they  aU  agree  that  our 
little  brown  brother  is  the  worst  of  the  lot.    They 

[73] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

say  that  he  is  idle,  hopelessly  thriftless,  a  liar,  treach- 
erous, dishonest,  and  mostly  vicious.  He  will  work 
only  when  compelled  to,  he  will  not  save  nor  try  to 
get  ahead.  He  has  no  regard  for  his  word,  no  con- 
science and  less  morality.  In  short,  he  is  a  ''bpxi 
lot."  There  are  two  exceptions,  the  most  savage 
tribes  as  we  reckon  savages, — the  Moros  and  the 
Igorrotes.  From  all  accounts  they  are  industrious, 
thrifty  and  honorable ;  and  the  Vizcayans  and  Taga- 
logs,  who  are  the  most  civilized  and  most  intelligent 
of  the  lot,  hate  them  accordingly. 

I  presume  this  statement  will  be  disputed,  and 
there  are  many  distinguished  exceptions  to  the  rule 
herein  laid  down,  Filipinos  of  high  character;  but 
I  believe  that  any  army  officer,  any  business  man, 
who  has  had  to  do  with  them,  and  particularly  any 
employer  of  labor  in  the  Islands,  will  confirm  this 
statement. 

So  here  is  the  raw  material  we  have  to  deal  with, 
and  it  is  surely  an  uphill  job.  They  will  hold  an  elec- 
tion in  September  for  members  of  the  first  Legislative 
Assembly  for  the  Islands.  It  will  be  a  lower  house, 
the  Governor  and  Council  constituting  the  upper. 
There  are  several  parties  contesting  the  seats,  but 

[74] 


MANILA. 


they  center  about  two  groups,  the  Independists,  who 
favor  immediate  independence,  and  the  Progressists, 
who  are  pro-American  and  advocate  waiting  and 
trusting  the  Americans.  The  former  are  promising 
the  voters  that  if  they  win  and  show  that  they  want 
immediate  independence,  the  Americans  will  grant 
independence  not  later  than  October.  I  think  the 
Independists  will  win  and  have  a  large  majority. 
About  that  time  Taft  will  arrive  and  something  will 
be  done. 

The  great  majority  of  them  care  nothing  about  the 
matter.  Out  of  nearly  19,000  quahfied  voters  in 
Manila,  only  6000  registered.  The  whole  movement 
is  confined  to  a  handful  of  agitators  who  want  office, 
who  have  a  little  schooling  and  can  ''orate."  The 
average  Islander,  with  his  nipa  shack,  a  few  acres  to 
till  and  a  carabao,  is  content  to  be  governed  anyhow 
if  no  wrong  is  done  him.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  God 
of  the  Far  East  is  a  God  of  Justice,  not  a  God  of  Love 
and  Mercy.  They  do  not  expect  mercy.  Mercy  is  to 
them  a  sign  of  weakness,  and  they  despise  the  mercy- 
monger  as  they  hate  injustice.  If  we  give  them  jus- 
tice— and  that  they  never  had  from  the  Spanish — they 
will  be  content. 

[75] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

It  is  nearly  always  some  wrong,  some  injustice, 
real  or  fancied,  that  drives  them  to  the  "Bosky" 
and  makes  ladrones  of  them.  One  of  them  is  cheated 
in  a  trade  or  the  presidente  of  a  town  injures  him  in 
some  way.  He  does  not  go  to  court,  he  has  no  faith 
in  the  law.  He  gathers  his  friends  and  takes  to  the 
bush  to  get  even.  Generally  he  comes  back  and  bums 
the  town,  and  kills  as  many  of  the  inhabitants  as  he 
can  lay  hands  on,  or  catches  the  offending  presidente, 
and,  in  his  simple  childish  way,  fills  him  with  kerosene 
and  sets  fire  to  it. 

The  constabulary  must  go  out  in  the  jungle  and 
catch  him  and  his  friends,  and  those  that  are  left  after 
the  fight  are  punished.  Generally  it  will  be  found 
that  they  had  some  grievance  and  turned  outlaw  to 
get  even.  We  have  established  courts  everywhere, 
and  our  judges  are  high-class  men.  They  are  paid 
liberal  salaries ;  the  lowest  receive  $5000  gold  a  year, 
and  very  gradually  they  are  teaching  the  Filipino 
that  he  can  get  justice,  get  it  surely,  quickly  and 
cheaply;  and  so,  very  slowly,  confidence  in  the  law, 
in  the  justice  of  the  Americans,  is  gaining,  and  these 
petty  insurrections  are  growing  fewer. 

One  of  the  most  prolific  sources  of  trouble  is  the 
[76] 


MANILA. 


land  question.  The  friars  claim  title  to  most  of  the 
good  land  in  Luzon.  Taft  bought  their  claims  for 
$7,000,000  gold,  with  the  idea  of  selling  it  to  the 
Filipinos.  The  friars  had,  at  best,  a  very  shadowy 
title,  and  in  most  cases  we  find  a  Filipino  in  posses- 
sion who  claims  to  own  it.  Generally  he  has  no  more 
than  a  squatter's  title,  but  he  has  occupied  it,  per- 
haps for  two  or  three  generations,  cleared  it,  diked  it 
for  rice,  and  thinks  it  his.  He  refuses  to  pay  for  it, 
law  suits  follow,  irritating,  expensive,  and  full  of  ill- 
feeling  for  the  Government. 

And  this  leads  me  to  one  of  the  severest  criticisms 
against  Taft  in  the  Islands.  They  say  that  the  Cath- 
olic Church  controls  him.  That  the  seven  millions 
was  a  gift  to  placate  the  church.  There  is  an  insist- 
ent rumor  that  he  has  reopened  the  matter  of  the 
church's  claim  for  destruction  of  churches  during  the 
war,  a  claim  rejected  once,  and  that  the  claim  of 
some  four  million  dollars  will  be  paid.  The  rumor  is 
persistent,  you  hear  it  everywhere,  and  everyone  be- 
lieves it,  but  it  is  not  "official."  "They  say"  that  it 
is  to  be  done  for  political  effect  at  home,  to  secure 
Catholic  support.  I  do  not  believe  the  claim  will  be 
paid,  and  if  it  is,  it  will  be  for  other  reasons.    They 

[77] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

overlook  the  fact  that  the  church  is  the  biggest  factor 
the  Government  has  to  deal  with  in  these  Islands.  It 
has  had  three  hundred  years  of  undisputed  power,  so 
long  that  the  people,  as  well  as  the  church  itself,  have 
come  to  regard  its  interference  in  Government  affairs, 
its  dictation  of  policies  and  appointments,  as  not  only 
natural  but  right.  It  is  very  rich,  very  powerful 
and  very  arrogant.  An  open  breach  with  it  would 
make  our  position  in  the  Islands  even  more  difficult 
than  it  now  is.  And  Taft  temporizes  with  it,  yields 
where  he  must,  but  avoids  any  ground  of  quarrel 
where  possible.  These  critics  also  ignore  how  greatly 
the  Americans  have  curtailed  the  former  powers  of 
the  church.  The  power  of  divorce  has  been  given 
to  our  courts,  civil  marriages  are  legalized,  and  so  the 
control  of  the  family  relation,  exclusively  in  the  church 
till  now,  has  been  taken  from  it.  But  above  all, 
education  has  been  wholly  secularized,  and  the  free 
schools  of  the  Islands  will  speedily  rob  the  church 
of  those  lay  powers  that  it  has  enjoyed  through  these 
instrumentalities.  It  takes  the  long  look  ahead,  pa- 
tient waiting  for  time  to  do  its  work.  The  critics  are 
too  hasty ;  they  desire  to  move  too  fast. 
Of  course  it  is  aggravating  to  know,  and  it  is  a  fact, 

[78] 


MANILA. 


that  no  man  can  hold  a  job  if  the  Church  opposes 
him.  Ide  defied  the  Church  and  lost  his  job.  Wright 
fell  out  with  the  Church  and  lost  his.  While  I  was 
there  a  man  selected  for  the  Council,  backed  by  every 
other  influence  in  the  Islands,  eminently  fit,  was 
finally  turned  down  because  the  Church  protested. 

But  I  believe  it  is  the  right  policy  for  the  present, 
however  much  it  galls  and  irritates  Americans. 

A  word  as  to  Ide  and  Wright.  The  former  is  from 
Vermont,  was  some  years  ago  Commissioner  in  Sa- 
moa under  the  tripartite  government  there  of  Eng- 
land, Germany,  and  the  United  States.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Council  here,  and  for  a  brief  period, 
Governor,  He  is  generally  thought  here  to  be  the 
ablest  American  who  was  ever  in  the  service.  He 
compiled  the  code  under  which  the  Islands  are  now 
governed,  and  it  stamps  him  as  one  of  the  greatest 
lawyers  now  alive.  It  is  as  nearly  perfect  as  law  can 
be.  He  took  the  best  of  the  civil  law  that  the  Span- 
ish used,  together  with  the  best  of  the  common  law, 
and  for  the  code  of  procedure  took  the  best  from  the 
code  States,  such  as  Ohio  and  California.  The  re- 
sult is  a  model :  clear,  certain,  compendious,  written 
in  beautiful  English,  it  furnishes  the  simplest,  most 

[79] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

inexpensive  and  most  exact  administration  of  justice 
that  I  know  of  anywhere.  There  is  no  jury  trial, 
but  the  right  of  appeal  is  universal,  simple,  and 
cheap. 

"\Miile  I  was  in  Manila  there  was  a  murder  trial 
that  involved  very  nearly  the  same  facts  as  the  Thaw 
case.  A  man  killed  the  "destroyer  of  his  home." 
It  was  shown  that  the  accused  had  been  intimate 
with  his  wife  before  marriage ;  that  she  had  been  in- 
timate with  other  men,  and  that  he  knew  it  when  he 
married  her.  There  was  no  mawkish  sentiment  in 
the  trial,  no  jury  to  weep  and  snivel  and  follow  their 
emotions, — just  a  cold-blooded  examination  of  the 
facts,  that  occupied  two  days,  cost  about  three  hun- 
dred dollars  to  the  Government,  and  ended  in  a  life 
sentence  for  the  murder. 

Ide  fell  out  with  Taft  over  expenditures.  Taft 
wanted  to  do  things,  to  spend  money  regardless  of 
whether  they  had  it  or  not.  Ide  .insisted  on  keeping 
within  the  revenues.  There  was  constant  bickering 
between  them,  and  when  Taft  ordered  the  building 
of  the  Benguet  road  there  was  almost  an  open  quarrel. 
This  road,  by  the  way,  comes  as  near  being  a  scandal 
as  anything  we  have  done  there,  and  furnishes  Taft's 

[80] 


SHINTO  TEMPLE,  NIKKO. 


MANILA 


critics  with  whole  chapters  of  abuse.  It  runs  from 
Dagupan,  the  northern  terminus  of  the  railroad,  to 
Bagayo,  the  present  capital  of  Benguet  (the  country 
of  the  Iggarotes),  and  also  the  summer  capital  of  the 
Islands.  It  is  an  automobile  road,  or  wagon-road, 
sixty  miles  in  length,  and  cost  over  two  millions  gold 
to  build  and  two  hundred  thousand  gold  a  year  to 
maintain.  Where  the  money  went  is  a  mystery,  as 
thirty-five  miles  of  it  is  through  a  level  country, 
merely  macadamized.  Twenty-five  miles  of  it  is 
in  the  mountains,  a  stupendous  task,  through  some 
of  the  grandest  scenery  in  the  world.  Bagayo,  the 
capital,  is  5200  feet  above  the  sea,  a  healthful  moun- 
tain climate  where  fires  are  needed  every  night,  but 
its  population  is  about  300  and  the  road  at  present 
does  not  benefit  to  exceed  500  people  in  the  Islands. 
A  few  rich  or  high-salaried  Americans  have  summer 
homes  there,  and  during  the  hot  months  of  March, 
April  and  May  the  Government  sits  there, — that  is 
aU. 

So,  say  the  critics,  Taft  has  spent  four  million 
pesos  and  imposed  an  annual  burden  on  the  Islands 
of  four  hundred  thousand  pesos  to  benefit  a  handful 
of  rich  people.    But^Taft  was  thinking''of  the  future. 

[81] 


THE     FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

He  intended  to  establish  there  a  brigade  post  and 
hospital.  To  so  move  our  troops  as  to  give  each  com- 
mand a  stay  in  that  high  altitude,  to  recuperate  and 
regain  its  health.  A  sick  soldier  is  of  as  little  account 
as  a  dead  soldier,  and  more  expensive.  There,  should 
be  a  great  hospital  or  sanatorium.  Here  our  military 
and  civil  servants,  debilitated  by  the  lowlands,  should 
come  to  regain  health  and  strength.  It  was  to  be  for 
the  Philippines  what  Simla  is  to  India;  but  at  pres- 
ent there  is  nothing  but  the  road  over  which  few 
travel,  a  scandal-breeder,  and  the  immediate  cause  of 
a  breach  between  the  two  ablest  men  the  Islands  have 
had,  Taft  and  Ide,  a  breach  that  never  healed  and 
cost  Ide  his  job. 

Wright  was  another  able  man,  but  too  strong,  too 
obstinate,  to  work  with  Taft. 

The  question  of  taxation  in  the  Philippines  is  a  hard 
one,  and  Wright  broke  his  shins  over  it.  The  Islands 
are  more  heavily  taxed  today  than  they  ever  were 
under  the  Spanish.  It  sounds  queer,  doesn't  it? — 
but  it  is  true.  We  have  retained  every  tax  the  Span- 
ish had  and  imposed  many  others.  We  have  reduced 
the  poll  tax,  but  we  have  added  a  very  heavy  internal 
revenue  tax,  including  stamps  on  all  legal  papers, 

[82] 


MANILA. 


and  a  land  tax,  a  thing  unheard  of  before.  The  land 
tax  was  perforce  suspended  for  a  year  because  all  the 
land  in  the  Islands  was  being  sold  for  taxes,  and  its 
continuance  would  have  precipitated  another  in- 
surrection, but  the  tax  on  tobacco  and  spirits  was 
Wright's  hobby.  Among  the  native  members  of  the 
Council  were  the  proprietor  of  the  great  Germinal 
tobacco  factory  and  a  large  distiller.  They  fought 
the  tax  bitterly ;  Wright  prevailed  and  got  his  tax, 
but  they  got  his  scalp.  He  was  let  down  easy  by 
being  sent  as  Minister  to  Japan,  from  which  he  has 
just  been  recalled  after  a  brief  service.  Exit  Wright, 
exit  Ide,  and  Taft  holds  the  center  of  the  stage. 

One  of  the  first  question  every  American  asked  me 
was,  "Is  it  true  that  Taft  will  get  the  Republican 
nomination?"  "It  looks  that  way  now."  "But 
why?"  "Left  to  him  by  the  last  will  and  testament 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt."  That  is  the  only  answer  I 
could  make,  for  without  the  overwhelming  influence 
of  the  President,  Taft  would  not  be  a  presidential 
possibility,  and  yet  I  believe  him  to  be  the  biggest 
man  in  the  bunch,  probably  the  best  man  for  the  job, 
but  I  do  not  believe  he  has  any  strong  personal  hold 
on  the  American  people.     If  he  were  running  here  in 

[83] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

the  Islands  he  would  not  get  five  per  cent  of  the 
American  votes  outside  of  his  personal  appointees, 
nor  would  he  now  get  ten  per  cent  of  the  native  vote. 
The  Americans  hate  him  because  he  has  constantly 
and  consistently  adhered  to  his  policy  of  the  "Phil- 
ippines for  the  Filipinos,"  and  no  American  can  get 
a  job  here  if  there  is  a  Filipino  at  all  competent  to 
fill  it.  He  has  lost  the  confidence  of  the  Filipinos 
because  they  took  his  vague  assurances  of  independ- 
ence for  a  promise,  a  promise  of  early  fulfillment, 
and  when  on  nis  last  trip  he  bade  them  wait,  they 
were  furious.  They  accused  him  of  bad  faith,  of 
treachery,  and  when  he  comes  again  in  September 
every  word  and  look  will  be  watched  and  weighed. 
Taft's  is  a  personality  that  peculiarly  impresses  the 
Asiatic  mind.  He  is  the  embodiment  of  physical 
and  mental  power.  He  makes  other  men  around  him 
look  like  thirty  cents.  He  is  firm,  but  gracious  and 
kindly.  He  is  impulsive,  emotional,  but  back  of  it 
is  a  big,  well-poised,  judicial  mind.  He  is  suave, 
politic,  so  much  so  that  his  enemies  say  he  is  "two- 
faced,"  and  for  a  while  the  Filipinos  looked  upon  him 
as  a  saint  and  prayers  were  offered  for  "Santo  Taft." 
He  was  the  best  man  we  could  have  had  there  at  the 

[84] 


MANILA. 

start,  and  his  mistakes  have  been  mainly  those  of  a 
mistaken  policy,  a  policy  that  must  be  abandoned 
if  these  Islands  are  ever  to  thrive. 

The  threat  of  a  Filipino  Republic  keeps  capital  out, 
and  capital  is  needed  to  develop  the  enormous  resources 
that  nature  has  heaped  up  here.  No  man  with  money 
will  place  it  at  the  mercy  of  a  native  government,  and 
as  a  result,  mountains,  rich  in  gold,  silver,  copper, 
iron  and  coal,  keep  their  treasures.  Lands  that 
would  produce  enormously  of  rice,  sugar,  and  hemp 
and  tobacco  are  untilled.  Great  forests  of  the  finest  of 
hardwoods  like  mahogany  and  nara,  are  untouched. 
Japan,  with  a  tithe  of  these  Islands'  tillable  land  and 
resources,  supports  forty  millions  of  people.  Java, 
a  mere  speck,  has  thirty  millions,  and  yields  an  enor- 
mous revenue  to  Holland.  If  when  we  took  these 
Islands  we  had  been  wise  and  honest  with  ourselves, 
if  we  had  said  to  the  world,  "We  hold  these  Islands 
and  we  shall  always  hold  them,  hold  them  by  the  best 
title  in  the  world,  the  title  of  the  sword,  that  title  by 
which  nine-tenths  of  the  earth's  surface  is  held;  we 
will  give  the  natives  justice,  and  such  measure  of 
local  government  as  they  show  themselves  fit  for,  but 
the  flag  shall  never  come  down," — if  we  had  given 

[85] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

that  assurance,  capital  would  have  flowed  in  here, 
and  this  magnificent  land  would  be  on  the  top  wave 
of  prosperity.  Sooner  or  later  we  shall  have  to  do 
it.  The  balance  of  power  in  the  Far  East,  as  well  as 
the  interests  of  the  Islands,  will  force  us  to. 

True,  there  is  some  capital  coming.  The  Dagupan 
Railroad  is  rebuilding,  but  the  Government  guar- 
antees the  four-per-cent  bonds  they  are  issuing.  A 
magnificent  street  railway  system  has  been  built  for 
Manila,  but  the  Government  guarantees  its  bonds, 
otherwise  these  things  would  not  be  done. 

Private  capital  to  invest  in  sugar,  hemp  and  to- 
bacco there  is  none.  Interest  rates  are  enormous, 
twelve  per  cent  on  land  and  twenty-four  per  cent  on 
personal  security.  "Business  is  very  dull"  you  hear 
everywhere,  and  it  will  not  be  better  till  we  assure  the 
world  that  capital  will  be  protected  and  not  delivered 
over  to  a  tropical  republic. 

Taft's  friends  say  that  he  does  not  want  to  be  Pres- 
ident; that  he  has  only  consented  to  be  a  candidate 
because  of  pressure  from  within  and  without,  from  his 
family  and  his  friends.  He  is  a  poor  man,  as  wealth 
goes  in  America.  His  father  left  a  veiy  small  com- 
petence, and  Taft  has  been  in  public  employ  for  over 

[86] 


MANILA. 


twenty  years  on  the  meager  salary  we  pay  our  public 
men,  and  has  saved  little  or  nothing.  One  reason 
that  he  was  loath  to  leave  the  Islands  was,  that  out  of 
the  salary  of  Governor-General,  twenty-five  thousand, 
gold,  he  could  save  something,  while,  as  Secretary  of 
War,  he  could  not. 

Possibly  there  is  too  much  Taft  in  this,  but  you 
cannot  escape  him  out  here.  His  name  is  on  every- 
one's tongue.  With  one  foot  in  Cuba  and  one  in  the 
Philippines,  his  shadow  falls  athwart  two  oceans  and 
his  personality  dominates  the  destinies  of  millions. 
He  is  very  big,  very  human,  and  very  interesting. 

We  passed  Corregidor  about  nine  o'clock,  and  of 
course  had  the  proper  thrill  when  we  sighted  Cavite. 
How  far  away  it  seems  now,  that  battle,  and  yet  it 
is  only  nine  years  since  the  world  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  there  was  an  American  Navy,  and  we  to  the  fact 
that  we  are  a  World  Power. 

But  of  all  the  surprises  the  East  has  given  us, 
Manila  is  the  greatest.  "The  cleanest,  prettiest  city 
in  the  Orient,"  that  is  the  verdict  of  the  Far  East. 
The  wide,  shallow  harbor  has  been  protected  by  a 
breakwater,  dredged  till  it  will  carry  any  ship  that 

[87] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

floats.  A  great  system  of  docks  is  nearly  completed 
and  land  for  warehouses  filled  in,  and  within  two  years 
Manila  will  have  the  finest  port  in  the  Orient.  This 
is  all  American.  Yes!  we  tax  them,  but  we  spend  the 
money  honestly  and  wisely.  And  then  Manila!  A 
launch  takes  us  up  the  Pasig,  filled  with  traffic,  bor- 
dered with  business  from  all  the  winds  that  blow,  to  a 
stone  quay,  and  we  get  our  first  glimpse  of  the  old 
"walled  city."  Built  in  the  days  of  smooth-bores, 
it  must  have  been  very  strong,  with  a  wide  moat  and 
scarp  and  counterscarp,  angle  and  bastion,  but  the 
wall's  only  use  now  is  to  furnish  a  historical  setting 
and  background  for  a  city  transplanted  from  the 
Iberian  Peninsula.  Narrow  streets,  tall  stone  houses, 
built  to  resist  "el  tremblor,"  grated  windows  and 
projecting  balconies  that  suggest  dark-eyed  senoritas 
and  waving  fans,  noisy  cobblestone  pavements  and 
two-foot  sidewalks,  all  old  but  clean,  miraculously 
clean.  This  is  where  the  American  comes  in.  Not 
a  stench,  not  a  speck,  no  rubbish,  no  garbage-heaps,  no 
open  sewers.  Not  a  city  in  America  has  as  clean 
streets  as  Manila.  None  is  better  policed,  none  more 
sanitary.  In  the  six  months  ending  July  1st,  there 
has  not  been  a  single  case  of  epidemic  disease  in  the 

[88] 


MANILA. 


town.  An  unparalleled,  an  unheard-of  thing,  it 
breaks  all  records,  not  only  in  Manila,  but  in  the 
Orient.  No  other  city  in  Asia  can  equal  it.  The 
bubonic  plague  is  epidemic  now  in  Hong  Kong  and 
Shanghai.  They  have  it  in  Yokohama  and  Nagasaki. 
Cholera  and  smallpox  are  always  at  work  in  the  Far 
East.  Manila  alone  is  free,  clean  and  healthy.  That 
is  American  sanitation.  Yes!  we  tax  them,  but  we 
give  them  something  for  their  money,  and  they  are 
beginning  to  realize  it,  and  no  one  knows  what  a  task 
it  has  been,  but  those  who  have  done  it.  To  the 
Filipino  filth  and  squalor  are  a  natural  environment. 
Left  to  himself,  his  surroundings  are  unspeakable. 
But  the  American  health  officer  hustles  him  and  har- 
ries him  and  makes  him  clean  up,  and  the  strange 
terrible  tropical  diseases  that  ran  their  course  un- 
checked and  slew  their  thousands  have  moved  over 
to  Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai,  and  the  native  wonders 
at  the  ways  of  these  Americans,  who  interfere  with 
the  will  of  God  and  do  it  successfully.  But  it  is  much 
trouble  to  be  so  clean,  and  after  all,  what  is  the  use? 
One  dies  when  God  wills,  if  not  of  the  plague,  then  of 
something  else.  WTien  your  time  comes — pouf !  you 
are  gone  and  that  is  the  end,  and  this  cleanness  is 

[89] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

much  trouble.     "Mother  of  God!    how  crazy  these 
big  Americans  are." 

Well!  they  are  clean  for  once,  and  we  have  paid 
toll  for  it  in  heroic  physicians  who  have  sacrificed 
their  lives  for  the  sanitation  of  this  filthy  old  Spanish 
town.  Personally,  I  do  not  think  our  brown  brother 
is  worth  it.  I  do  not  think  the  Islands  are  worth  the 
life  of  one  Amv^rican,  but  we  are  here  somehow,  we 
have  shouldered  the  ''WTiite  Man's  Burden"  and  we 
cannot  in  honor  lay  it  down.  By  the  way,  speaking 
of  our  brown  brother,  here  is  a  favorite  song  among  the 
Americans  here : 

"He  may  be  a  brother  of  William  H.  Taft, 
But  he  ain't  no  brother  of  mine." 

Of  all  the  races  of  the  Pacific,  I  think  the  Filipinos 
are  the  least  attractive.  They  are  ugly — men,  women 
and  children.  Their  dress  is  a  caricature.  They 
are  slouchy,  unkempt,  slovenly.  Even  the  Mestizos, 
who  have  an  infusion  of  foreign  blood,  are  no  great 
improvement  on  the  native  stock. 

Of  course  at  five  o'clock  we  took  a  carriage  and 
drove  to  the  Lunetta  to  see  and  be  seen.  There  the 
band  plays  and  there  everyone,  "as  is  an3"one,"  goes 
and  drives  around  and  around  its  oval  roadway  for 

[90] 


MANILA. 


an  hour.  The  band  is  good,  its  director  an  American 
negro,  and  the  scene  is  a  gay  one.  Everyone  wears 
white,  and  everyone,  official  and  unofficial,  is  there  in 
his  best. 

Such  turnouts!  American  horses  cannot  live  here. 
Occasionally  an  imported  Australian  horse  survives, 
but  seldom.  So  the  horseflesh  is  Filipino  ponies  and 
the  carriages  calesas  or  victorias.  The  calesa  is  a 
two-wheeled  affair,  drawn  by  one  horse  with  the 
driver  seated  over  the  horse's  tail,  and  it  bumps  and 
jiggles  in  the  most  absurd  fashion;  and  by  the  way, 
you  pay  New  York  prices  for  its  hire.  The  victoria 
has  two  horses  with  a  driver  in  livery,  all  but  his  feet, 
which  are  bare. 

The  draught  animal  of  the  Islands  is  the  carabao 
or  water-buffalo,  an  ungainly  beast  with  wide  re- 
treating horns,  an  ugly  temper,  and  a  gait  of  about  a 
mile  an  hour.  He  must  be  allowed  to  get  in  water 
at  regular  intervals  or  he  goes  crazy,  and  he  hates  the 
American.  Four  of  them  once  stampeded  a  regiment 
of  regular  infantry,  and  one  of  them  will  make  a 
whole  company  take  to  the  trees  any  time. 

Well!  the  Lunetta  parade  is  over  and  we  drive 
back  to  a  dinner  at  the  Delmonico,  a  good  dinner  in  a 

[91] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TO-DAY. 

hotel  that  was  formerly  the  "Casa"  of  an  old  Spanish 
family,  with  a  wide  cool  patio,  a  great  interior  court, 
and  rooms  that  are  mainly  out  of  doors. 

We  went  shopping  in  the  evening.  All  the  shop- 
keepers are  Chinese,  for  the  Filipino  has  no  notion  of 
trade,  and  finds  it  hard  to  add  two  and  two.  Every- 
one smokes  long  black  cigars  all  the  time  save  when 
he  is  asleep.  The  clerk  that  waited  on  F.  had  on  a 
pair  of  drawers,  that  was  all,  and  pufTed  a  big  black 
cigar  in  her  face.  The  shops  are  small,  and  not  much 
temptation  to  buy.  American  goods  are  very  high, 
and  few  of  the  native  stuffs  attractive.  One  of  the 
complaints  against  the  American  occupation  is  the 
increased  cost  of  living, — trebled,  some  say;  others, 
quadrupled.  Rents  are  high;  wages  have  advanced 
three-fold  with  no  improvement  in  the  quality  of 
labor.  Where  a  common  laborer  formerly  received 
50  cents  a  day  Mexican,  that  is  25  cents  gold,  he  now 
gets  $1.50  Mexican.  Instead  of  working  six  days  in 
the  week  as  he  formerly  did,  he  now  works  two,  loafs 
and  fights  chickens  the  rest  of  the  time.  Every 
grown  Filipino  owns  one  or  more  gamecocks,  and  the 
only  poultry  you  get  on  the  table  is  game  chickens, 
too  old  or  too  cowardly  to  fight. 

[92] 


MANILA. 

We  went  up  the  Pasig  in  a  launch,  where  the  mon- 
keys chattered  at  us  from  strange  tropical  foliage,  and 
the  ylang-ylang  burdened  the  air  with  its  heavy  per- 
fume, the  most  lasting  and  penetrating  of  all  odors. 

We  went  out  to  Fort  McKinley,  five  miles  from 
town,  where  4000  of  our  soldiers  rust  in  idleness,  and 
saw  the  long  street  of  nipa  shacks  that  leads  to  it,  a 
Filipino  variant  of  the  approach  to  every  military 
post  the  world  over,  where  the  boys  dope  themselves 
with  vino  and  beget  half-breeds. 

Mainly  I  visited  with  the  American  expatriates,  a 
royal  bunch  of  fellows. 

Major  Bishop,  of  Salina,  who  came  with  the  Twen- 
tieth Kansas  and  has  seen  more  fighting  than  any 
man  in  the  Islands  (that  is  his  record),  is  a  lawyer 
here  with  a  big  practice,  likes  it,  and  so  do  his  family. 

Captain  Haussman,  of  Leavenworth,  is  another 
lawyer  in  a  large  way  of  business.  There  are  thirty 
or  forty  American  lawyers  in  Manila,  all  apparently 
doing  well,  and  they  like  it.  They  defend  the  climate, 
and  the  Lord  knows  it  needs  able  counsel  for  the  de- 
fense. It  is  not  so  hot,  but  the  humidity  is  awful. 
It  has  been  known  to  rain  23  inches  in  24  hours.  The 
annual  precipitation  often  runs  to  110  inches.     In 

[93] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

1904  it  rained  without  stopping  a  moment  for  17 
days.  Manila  was  a  lake;  the  water  in  the  streets 
was  from  three  to  five  feet  deep. 

The  hot  season  is  from  March  to  June;  then  the 
rains  set  in  for  three  months.  The  fall  and  winter 
are  delightful.  It  is  not  unhealthf  ul  if  one  lives  prop- 
erly, but  the  continuous  heat  is  debilitating. 

Most  Americans  like  Manila,  but  a  significant  com- 
mentary on  the  climate  is  the  fact  that  foreign  mer- 
cantile houses  and  trading  firms,  both  here  and  in 
Hong  Kong,  contract  their  employes  for  three  years' 
service  only,  at  the  end  of  which  they  have  a  year's 
leave  to  go  home  and  recuperate.  Our  troops  are 
never  kept  there  more  than  three  years. 

I  must  say  I  felt  a  big  surge  of  pride  when  I  saw 
our  soldiers  out  there.  They  are  so  big,  clean-limbed, 
well  set  up.  They  make  the  natives  look  like  a  lot 
of  rats.  Even  the  English  colonel  who  saw  them 
parade  at  the  fort,  admitted  to  me  that  they  were 
"a  damned  fine  lot  of  men." 

You  may  think  I  am  rather  dogmatic  about  condi- 
tions here  for  the  length  of  my  stay,  but  you  must  re- 
member that  I  have  traveled  thirty  days  with  thirty  or 
forty  of  the  best  informed  people  in  these  Islands, 

94] 


MANILA. 

men  of  every  condition,  official  and  unofficial;  and 
in  the  long  days  on  the  Pacific,  where  the  Calendar 
is  lost  and  Time  has  gone  off  to  have  a  smoke,  I  lis- 
tened to  them,  and  heard  from  them  the  story  of  our 
attempt  at  Imperialism. 

Allow  me  one  more  generalization.  Our  occupation 
has  been  a  good  thing  for  the  Filipino,  though  we  do 
tax  him  pretty  heavily.  His  land  is  at  peace,  his  life 
and  property  are  safe,  his  towns  are  clean  and  healthy, 
his  children  are  at  school,  and  our  schools  are  fine. 
He  has  justice  and  a  square  deal. 

But  for  us  it  is  simply  the  White  Man's  Burden. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  for  us  but  expense  and  the  an- 
nual toll  of  valuable  lives,  sacrificed  for  a  very  poor 
lot  of  lazy,  worthless  beggars,  who  hate  us  and  would 
rather  kill  an  American  than  go  to  a  cock-fight. 

If  we  should  announce  that  we  intend  to  hold  the 
Islands,  take  down  the  tariff  wall,  and  give  the 
Islands  free  trade  with  the  United  States,  then  there 
would  be  great  opportunities  to  make  money  here  and 
in  time  we  might  recoup  ourselves. 

But  the  argument  that  the  possession  of  Manila 
strengthens  us  in  the  Orient  is  folly.  It  weakens  us. 
We  dare  not  offend  Japan,  for  she  could  take  these 

[95] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Islands  in  a  month.  It  does  not  help  our  trade  in 
the  Far  East,  for  we  are  losing  what  little  we  ever 
had.  It  does  not  help  our  shipping,  for  we  have 
none.  Today  not  a  single  ship  in  the  harbors  of 
Yokohama,  Manila,  Hong  Kong  or  Shanghai  flies 
our  flag,  save  the  Pacific  Mail,  that  is  hanging  on  by 
its  eyelids  in  the  hope  of  a  subsidy  sometime. 

Our  little  brown  brother  is  getting  all  the  best  of 
it,  and  we  pay  the  piper. 

Before  I  leave  Manila  I  want  to  tell  you  a  story 
or  two.  These  Islands  are  so  rich  in  literary  material 
that  a  writer  could  fill  books  and  books  with  them. 
At  the  risk  of  forestalling  a  real  author  and  spoiling 
a  great  story,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  one  or  two. 

I  have  told  you  something  of  the  Governor:  he  is 
Governor  Pack,  of  Benguet  province.  He  was  a 
lieutenant  in  the  Cuban  War  and  was  at  Santiago; 
then  he  volunteered  again,  and  came  out  here  with  a 
Michigan  regiment  and  chased  insurrectos  through 
the  swamps  and  jungles  for  two  years,  and  when  the 
war  was  over  was  made  Governor  of  the  Igarrote 
province  of  Benguet,  then  the  wildest  and  most  in- 
accessible tract  in  the  Islands.    He  has  hunted  and 

[96] 


MANILA. 


trapped  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  the  Far 
North.  He  has  farmed,  banked,  and  done  nearly 
everything,  but  at  heart  he  is  a  gentleman  adventurer, 
one  of  the  old  kind,  one  of  those  who,  to  quote  Kip- 
ling, "fought,  and  sailed,  and  ruled  the  world."  He 
loves  adventure  for  its  own  sake,  and  his  comfortable 
home  in  the  States  and  the  humdrum  life  of  Battle 
Creek  bore  him.  He  was  sent  home  to  die  last  year, 
after  a  terrible  operation  for  abscess  of  the  liver.  No 
one  ever  thought  he  would  live,  but  he  did,  and  as 
soon  as  he  was  well  enough,  back  he  came  to  take  up 
his  work,  and  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  with  him 
for  a  month  on  the  "Nippon."  What  stories!  What 
experiences !  How  it  broadens  one's  horizon  to  meet 
a  man  like  that,  who  has  ruled  60,000  naked  savages 
with  the  power  of  life  and  death,  pacified  them,  civ- 
ilized them  in  a  way,  cut  roads,  built  towns,  explored 
and  delimited  a  country  as  impenetrable  as  Darkest 
Africa,  given  those  savages  the  White  Man's  Rule 
and  taught  them  that  the  White  Man  can  be  just, 
and  that  he  has  gifts  worth  their  taking. 

Well !  my  story  waits.  I  love  Governor  Pack,  and 
when  I  go  talking  about  him,  I  grow  garrulous, — 
so  here  goes. 

[97] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

THE  STORY  OF  ARITA. 

In  Manila  there  is  a  great  stone  building,  known  as 
Bilibid  Prison,  one  of  the  gloomiest  and  most  terrible 
penal  fortresses  in  the  world. 

When  the  Americans  took  the  city,  it  was  full  of 
all  sorts,  gentle  and  simple,  guilty  and  innocent, 
malefactors,  high-born  men  and  women,  criminals 
who  deserv^ed  the  garrote  and  patriots  who  deserved 
the  laurel  wreath. 

While  the  Americano  brought  with  one  hand  the 
sword,  in  the  other  he  held  the  scales :  Justice  above 
all.  Justice  to  this  prostrate  people  who  knew  the 
word  only  as  a  vague  abstraction.  When  the  red 
harvest  of  war  was  reaped,  the  moment  the  mauser 
and  the  krag  had  ceased  their  bloody  argument,  the 
first  thought  of  this  strange  big,  keen-eyed  race  from 
across  the  sea  was  Justice,  Justice  for  all,  high  and 
low.  And  so  those  gloomy  vaults  were  opened,  rec- 
ords scanned,  and  for  most  the  doors  swimg  outward, 
— out  into  the  open  and  God's  free  air.  But  many 
of  the  records  had  been  destroyed,  no  charge  remained, 
and  justice  demanded  pmiishment  for  the  guilty,  as 
well  as  freedom  for  the  innocent,  and  so  strict  search 
was  made  in  every  case,  that  Justice  might  be  done. 

[98] 


MANILA. 


Among  these  prisoners  was  one  Achdan,  an  Igor- 
rote,  detained  four  years;  "cause  of  detention,  un- 
known." As  Governor  of  the  Igorrotes  the  case  was 
turned  over  to  Pack.  "Find  out  why  he  is  here  and 
report," 

It  did  not  take  long.  Every  Igorrote  knew  the 
story  of  Achdan,  Arita,  Lunkai,  and  Martinez. 

Lunkai  was  the  widow  of  a  head  chief,  overlord  of 
some  six  or  seven  tribes.  At  his  death  she  succeeded 
to  the  headship.  A  woman  of  masculine  mind,  strong, 
just  and  fearless,  she  ruled  her  people  well  and  they 
prospered.  She  was  wealthy,  with  great  herds  of 
cattle,  rich  coffee  lands  in  the  valleys,  horees,  man- 
servants and  maid-servants.  She  had  no  children, 
but  there  were  three  nieces,  children  of  her  younger 
sister ;  and  the  eldest,  Arita,  was  the  Pearl  of  the  Ig- 
orrotes. She  must  have  been  very  beautiful,  for  she  is 
known  and  talked  of  in  Manila  to  this  day.  I  heard 
a  Frenchman  at  the  Army  and  Navy  Club  allude  to 
her  as  "La  Belle  Sauvage,  the  most  beautiful  woman 
in  the  Islands." 

Arita  was  nearly  sixteen,  a  full-grown  woman  in 
that  clime,  when  her  aunt  sent  her  with  a  cargo  of 
coffee  to  Trinidad,  the  Spanish  capital  of  Benguet. 

[99] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

She  was  to  market  the  coffee,  buy  the  cotton,  the 
knives,  the  tools  and  necessaries  for  the  ensuing  year, 
and  with  her  in  charge  of  the  loaded  ponies  and  the 
other  servants,  went  Achdan,  hapless  Achdan.  When 
they  reached  Trinidad,  from  whence  in  those  days, 
carabao  carts  took  their  produce  to  the  port  of  San 
Fernando,  one  Martinez,  a  Spanish  captain,  had  but 
then  been  appointed  Governor  of  Benguet,  with  head- 
quarters at  its  capital  of  Trinidad.  He  was  handsome, 
gallant,  dapper,  and  above  all  a  horseman;  more,  a 
centaur.  He  rode  as  few  ride,  and  he  rode  the  best 
horseflesh  the  Islands  could  produce.  Now  it  hap- 
pens that  the  Igorrotes  are  daft  over  horses.  They 
admire  above  all  else  a  good  horseman.  They  will 
work  for  nothing  over  horses  rather  than  draw  a 
wage  at  any  other  employment. 

Arita  shared  this  passion  of  her  race,  and  as  if  Eros 
had  expressly  designed  it,  she  saw  Martinez  for  the 
first  time  on  horseback.  Handsome  enough  on  foot, 
he  was  a  god  mounted,  and  he  rode  into  her  heart 
without  knocking.  Straightway  she  fell  in  love  with 
him.  Love ! — she  loved  as  only  a  woman  of  the  trop- 
ics, and  a  savage  at  that,  can  love.  He  possessed  her, 
body  and  soul. 

[100] 


MANILA. 


She  sold  her  aunt's  coffee,  bought  the  necessaries 
she  was  charged  with,  and  sent  Achdan  and  his  fellow- 
sevants  homewards.  She  herself  lingered  in  Trinidad 
to  gaze  her  fill  on  Martinez.  He  was  young,  single, 
unattached.  It  did  not  take  him  long  to  notice  this 
"Belle  Sauvage,"  nor  to  see  how  matters  stood,  nor 
to  come  to  conclusions  with  her.  Within  a  week 
she  had  entered  his  house  as  his  "Querida."  What 
is  that?  Literally,  "deary";  in  short,  his  mistress. 
But  not  that  exactly.  It  is  something  more.  The 
old  Spanish  law  of  the  Islands  recognizes  this  relation 
between  a  Spaniard  and  a  native.  It  is  quasi-legal. 
The  children  inherit.  It  is  below  the  wife  and  above 
the  mistress.  So  there  were  Arita  and  Martinez, 
both  by  this  time  wildly  in  love  with  each  other, 
wildly  happy.  Arita  had  a  talent  for  music,  and 
Martinez  had  it  cultivated.  She  learned  the  harp 
and  the  guitar.  She  learned  to  sing,  to  wear  shoes 
and  corsets,  to  do  up  her  hair  in  Spanish  style,  and 
more  and  more  Martinez  adored  her  and  Arita  forgot 
her  aunt  and  her  sisters  and  her  valley  home. 

Of  course  it  could  not  last — ^it  never  does.  News 
travels  faster  in  that  country  than  you  would  think 
where  there  are  no  telegraphs  or  mails  or  even  roads, 

[101] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

and  soon,  very  soon,  old  Lunkai  heard  that  her  niece, 
her  dearest,  the  Pearl  of  the  Hills,  was  the  "querida" 
of  a  hated  Spaniard. 

Forthwith,  she  sent  four  spears,  i.  e.,  grown  war- 
riors, old  enough  to  handle  a  spear,  to  capture  Arita 
and  bring  her  back.  They  lay  in  wait,  and  in  an  un- 
guarded moment  seized  her  and  carried  her  back  to 
Lunkai.  There  was  no  punishment,  no  reproaches; 
she  was  set  at  her  old  tasks,  but  watched.  In  three 
days  she  eluded  them,  and  through  jungle  and  forest, 
across  mountains  and  torrents,  by  pathless  ways,  she 
rejoined  her  lover.  Once  more  she  was  captured, 
once  more  she  escaped.  A  third  time,  a  fourth  time, 
and  when  she  was  retaken  the  fifth  time,  Lunkai 
warned  her  that  the  next  flight  would  be  her  last,  and 
the  punishment  of  the  Igorrotes  would  be  hers. 

Still  she  dared,  and  once  more,  half-naked,  her  bare 
feet  bruised  and  bleeding,  returned  to  Martinez. 
Then  Martinez  guarded  her;  soldiers  surrounded  her 
when  she  went  abroad,  watched  her  waking  and  sleep- 
ing. Every  Igorrote  that  entered  the  town  was  under 
surveillance.  A  year  passed  by;  they  were  happy. 
Arita  grew  more  beautiful,  she  sang  like  a  thrush 
and  played  divinely.     Martinez  worshipped  her,  but 

[102] 


MANILA. 


in  time  the  guard  relaxed,  and  Lunkai's  servants,  who 
had  never  ceased  to  watch  for  a  moment,  relieved  and 
changed  from  time  to  time,  but  always  there,  seized 
her  and  carried  her  back  to  the  mountains. 

Lunkai  summoned  her  sub-chiefs,  and  trial  was 
had.  Till  far  into  the  night  they  debated.  She  was 
their  fairest,  their  dearest.  They  hesitated,  but  at 
the  last  they  pronounced  her  doom. 

She  was  bound,  Achdan  brought  the  lime,  and 
Limkai  with  her  own  hands  rubbed  it  into  Arita's 
eyes  till  her  sight  was  gone.  Her  eyes  had  shown  her 
the  way  to  sin.  Through  her  eyes  she  had  fallen,  her 
eyes  had  offended,  and  her  eyes  were  destroyed. 
That  is  the  justice  of  the  Igorrote.  "If  thine  eye 
offend  thee,  pluck  it  out."  That  was  all;  except  for 
this. awful  punishment  she  was  treated  tenderly. 

Martinez  missed  her,  but  believed  that  she  would 
return  as  before.  Once  more  news  travels  quickly, 
especially  ill  news,  and  soon  Martinez  knew.  He 
was  of  the  cool,  tenacious  Spanish  type.  He  did  not 
rage  and  rave,  but  struck,  struck  as  the  adder  strikes, 
without  warning.  He  gathered  his  soldiers,  and 
within  an  hour  was  on  his  way  to  the  hills.  Excuses 
for  a  raid  on  the  Igorrotes  were  not  wanting  in  those 

[103] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

days.  There  was  always  war  smouldering  between 
them  and  the  Spaniards,  and  Martinez  swept  through 
their  valley  as  a  devouring  flame.  He  burned  and 
slew  like  an  avenging  angel.  Believe  me,  they  paid 
dearly  for  that  act  of  Justice,  the  innocent  and  the 
guilty.  He  slew  the  chiefs,  captured  Lunkai  and  Ach- 
dan,  and  once  more  held  in  his  arms  his  blinded 
beauty,  more  dear  to  him  than  ever. 

Lunkai  and  Achdan  were  sent  to  the  Bilibid,  there 
to  languish  till  Dewey  came.  Lunkai  died  shortly, 
but  Achdan  lived. 

Martinez  took  Arita  to  Manila,  and  sought  the  most 
famous  oculists  without  result;  her  sight  was  gone. 
He  continued  her  education  in  music,  till  she  became 
famous.  Shortly  after,  he  was  ordered  home  and  he 
took  her  with  him.  On  the  way  home,  he  died  of  the 
plague  and  was  buried  at  sea.  Today  Arita  is  a  pro- 
fessional musician  in  Spain,  not  on  the  stage,  but  as 
an  entertainer  at  private  houses,  at  dinners  and  the 
like.  And  so  these  two  principals  pass  from  the  story, 
and  we  return  to  Achdan,  hapless  Achdan. 

Four  years  he  lingered  in  the  horrors  of  the  Bilibid, 
to  his  free  savage  soul,  four  eternities,  and  then  came 
the  Governor.     He  had  Taft's  pardon,  and  refused  an 

[104] 


MANILA. 


invitation  to  dinner  at  the  Palace  to  take  it  to  Achdan 
himself.  When  the  door  was  opened,  when  the  Gov- 
ernor spoke  to  him  in  his  own  tongue,  and  told  him  he 
was  free,  he  was  dazed.  He  stumbled  into  the  sun- 
light, hearing  as  though  in  a  dream  his  native  tongue, 
so  long  forgotten,  and  not  till  he  was  in  the  carriage 
with  the  Governor  did  he  realize  that  he  was  free. 
And  then  he,  this  warrior,  the  man  with  three  rings 
on  his  spear — and  each  ring  means  an  enemy  slain  in 
open  fight — broke  down.  He  wept  and  groveled  and 
kissed  Pack's  hands,  his  feet  and  his  garments. 

The  Governor  got  him  clothes,  took  him  to  a  hotel, 
fed  him  and  gave  him  a  room,  but  when  morning 
came  there  was  Achdan  asleep  across  the  Governor's 
threshold  on  the  floor.  That  morning  thej^  started 
for  the  hills,  taking  the  railroad  to  Dagupan.  On 
the  way  the  Governor's  old  trouble  seized  him.  He 
had  a  hemorrhage,  and  was  taken  to  the  hospital 
at  Dagupan  insensible.  Achdan  could  not  be  driven 
away,  but  slept  on  the  floor  beside  the  cot. 

When  they  reached  Baguio,  the  center  of  the  Igor- 
rote  country.  Pack  dismissed  him  and  supposed  the 
incident  closed.  He  did  not  then  know  the  Igorrote 
character.    Achdan  went  away,  but  a  week  later,  one 

[105] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

morning  the  Governor  found  Achdan  squatted  on  his 
hams  before  the  door.  Achdan  explained  that  he 
owed  his  life  to  the  Governor,  and  had  come  back  to 
pay  the  debt  by  taking  care  of  the  Governor's  horses. 
The  Governor  told  him  that  he  already  had  a  good 
groom,  in  the  person  of  Bachdan,  another  Igorrote, 
whom  he  could  not  discharge  without  cause,  and  that 
he  had  no  place  for  Achdan.  Achdan  listened  and 
went  away.  In  a  half-hour  Bachdan  the  groom  came 
in  and  said  he  had  been  discharged  by  Achdan;  that 
Achdan  owed  the  Governor  a  debt  that  he  must  work 
out,  which  he  could  only  do  by  caring  for  the  Gov- 
ernor's horses,  and  therefore  he,  Bachdan,  had  given 
up  his  place  that  Achdan  might  keep  the  faith  of  an 
Igorrote  and  pay  his  debt. 

No  amount  of  discussion  could  change  it,  so  the 
Governor  finally  took  Bachdan  as  interpreter,  to  ac- 
company him  on  his  trips  among  his  natives,  and  Ach- 
dan took  the  horses.  He  made  a  first-class  groom, 
but  would  take  no  wages, — he  was  working  out  his 
his  debt. 

Finally  at  the  end  of  a  year  the  Governor  offered 
him  his  regular  wage  of  120  pesos,  60  dollars  gold, 
for  the  year,  and  told  him  that  unless  he  took  it  his 

[106] 


MANILA. 


job  was  done,  and  also  advised  him  to  go  back  to  his 
native  valley,  get  a  wife  and  settle  down.  After  a 
long  argument,  Achdan  agreed  to  take  half  his  wages, 
go  home  for  a  visit  and  see  what  he  could  do  in  the 
way  of  a  wife. 

So  Achdan  took  60  pesos  and  went  home.  He 
found  a  girl  he  liked,  contracted  with  her  father  for 
her,  and  then  they  must  have  a  betrothal  feast.  So 
Achdan  spent  the  rest  of  his  money  for  a  fat  cow  and 
a  pig;  the  neighbors  were  invited  in  and  feasted, 
and  the  betrothal  was  duly  solemnized.  Then  Ach- 
dan came  back,  worked  another  year  for  the  Governor, 
took  his  wages,  got  married,  built  a  nipa  shack, 
bought  two  cows  and  a  pony,  and  is  getting  to  be  a 
head  man  in  his  tribe.  But  if  the  Governor  goes 
within  twenty  miles  of  that  shack,  he  must  go  there 
to  sleep  and  be  fed  by  Mrs.  Achdan,  while  Achdan 
once  more  recounts  to  his  tribesmen  how  the  "Chief 
with  the  white  hair"  saved  his  life. 

So  there  is  the  story — Life,  Love,  and  Death. 

Some  one  was  once  telling  Hiram  D.  a  very  dull, 
long-winded  story.  Noting  his  hearer's  wandering 
attention,  he  sought  to  arrest  it  with  the  remark, 
"This  is  a  true  story."     "Thank  God!"  said  Hiram, 

[107] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

"there  is  some  excuse  for  the  story."    So  my  story 
has  that  excuse. 

These  Igorrotes  are  a  remarkable  race  of  savages. 
They  muster  some  12,000  spears,  fighting-men  all. 
When  an  Igorrote  kills,  he  puts  a  ring  on  his  spear. 
They  are  fearless,  temperate,  honest,  and  industrious. 

Once  when  the  smallpox  was  decimating  them, 
Pack  said  to  one  of  their  chiefs,  "Why  does  your  God 
permit  this?  WTiy  does  he  send  this  sickness  up)on 
you?"  The  Igorrote  chief  thought  a  long  time,  and 
finally  said : 

"  You  are  our  Governor ;  you  order,  we  obey.  You 
make  us  do  many  things  we  do  not  understand.  You 
make  us  pay  a  tax,  lay  aside  our  spears,  cut  roads, 
live  in  peace,  bring  our  disputes  to  you.  We  do  not 
know  why,  but  we  know  you  are  just  and  wise,  we 
trust  you,  and  do  not  ask  questions.  Our  God  is 
more  wise,  more  just  than  you ;  we  trust  him,  we  do 
not  complain,  we  take  what  he  sends." 

Could  any  Christian  have  answered  for  his  faith 
in  better  terms? 

Well !   the  anchor  is  apeak,  the  last  cascoe  has  left 

[108] 


MANILA. 


the  ship;  our  friends  of  a  few  days  are  overside; 
Hkely  we  shall  never  see  them  again,  and  they  have 
grown  very  dear  in  these  few  days  in  this  alien  land, 
whose  mysterious  Asiatic  shadow  draws  the  American 
kinship  so  close.  It  is  just  "Howdy  and  Good-by." 
A  meeting  and  a  parting.  Fain  we  are  to  linger,  but 
may  not.  Cathay  lies  before  us,  dim,  vast,  myste- 
rious. As  we  leave  Corregidor  behind,  the  short 
twilight  of  these  latitudes  fades  swiftly  and  the  tropic 
night  with  its  velvet  blackness  of  sky,  its  phosphores- 
cent sea,  its  strange  new  constellations,  is  over  us, 
and  Hong  Kong  is  yonder. 


[109] 


HONG    KONG  . 

"  Never  the  lotus  closes,  never  the  wdld  fowl  wake, 
But  a  soul  goes  out  on  the  east-wind,  that  died  for  Eng- 
land's sake. 
Man  or  woman  or  suckling,  mother  or  bride  or  maid. 
For  on  the  bones  of  the  English  the  English  flag  is  stayed." 

On  a  wide  hillside  overlooking  the  Happy  Valley 
and  shadowed  by  the  mighty  Peak  of  Hong  Kong 
lies  the  English  cemetery,  and  reading  there  the  ages 
of  the  dead,  and  marking  the  number  that  lie  there, 
I  realize  anew  the  price  that  England  pays  for  em- 
pire. 

"Edwards    Bruce,    aged    seven,"    "Chas.    Albert 

Bruce,  aged  three,"  "Mary,  the  loved  wife  of , 

aged  twenty-seven,"  and  so  on.  This  city  of  the 
dead  already  outnumbers  the  living,  and  Victoria, 
or  British  Hong  Kong,  is  but  sixty  years  old. 

After  the  Opium  War  of  1840,  England  secured  this 
island,  where  already  there  was  a  Chinese  town. 
Eight  years  ago  she  secured  a  ninety-nine  year  "lease," 
as  it  is  euphemistically  called,  on  a  tract  of  forty-five 
thousand  square  miles  lying  back  of  Kowloon,  and 

[110] 


HONG    KONG. 


her  "sphere  of  influence"  extends  up  the  Pearl  river, 
to  Canton,  where  there  is  another  British  settlement, 
over  the  West  river,  the  rich  deltas  and  water-ways 
of  both. 

Hong  Kong  is  a  crown  colony  ruled  by  a  Governor 
and  CouncU,  appointed  from  home.  There  are  some 
twenty  thousand  foreigners  (of  whom  only  three 
hundred  are  Americans)  and  about  two  hundred 
thousand  Chinese. 

You  doubt  this  statement,  for  the  whole  island  is 
less  than  three  miles  long  and  narrow,  and  the  town 
itself  clings  to  a  narrow  shore  against  the  moimtain 
walls.  However,  it  is  true,  for  the  Chinese  occupy 
Hong  Kong  at  a  ratio  of  640,000  to  the  acre.  Can 
you  believe  that?  It  is  inconceivable  till  you  have 
seen  it,  and  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  is  my  au- 
thority. After  you  have  seen  a  real  Chinese  city, 
not  an  imitation  Chinatown  in  America,  you  will 
not  doubt  it.  We  will  discuss  it  more  at  length 
when  we  get  to  Canton. 

I  believe  that  I  have  said  something  about  beau- 
tiful harbors  before,  and  have  unfortunately  ex- 
hausted my  stock  of  adjectives  which  I  should  have 
reserved  for  Hong  Kong.    You  approach  it  through 

[111] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

a  narrow  gut  between  sterile  hills,  heavily  fortified, 
and  then  the  great  estuary  of  the  Pearl  and  West 
rivers  opens  before  you,  a  land-locked  bay  big  enough 
to  hold  all  the  fleets  of  the  world;  good  anchorage; 
its  only  drawback  the  prevalence  of  the  typhoon. 
Kowloon,  the  naval  station,  is  on  your  right,  the 
city  on  the  left,  on  an  island,  and  above  it  towers  the 
peak,  three  thousand  feet.  Terrace  above  terrace, 
with  verdure  and  greenness,  winding  roads  and  path- 
ways, and  at  the  very  top  the  signal  station  and  ob- 
servatory of  the  Far  East  from  whence  they  signal 
the  approach  of  the  dreaded  typhoon.  The  English 
built  Hong  Kong  as  they  always  build,  for  time  and 
eternity,  solid,  stodgy,  but  not  beautiful. 

A  tramway  follows  the  bund  or  "sea  road"  clear 
to  the  Happy  Valley,  a  beautiful  spot  where  the  race- 
track is,  and  where  they  play  polo  and  cricket  and 
tennis  and  golf,  without  at  least  one  of  which  no  Eng- 
lishman can  live.  The  town  is  a  tower  of  babel  for 
tongues.  Every  race  of  the  East  meets  here  to  deal 
and  traffic.  Sikhs  in  huge  turbans  police  the  streets, 
and  Mohammedans  with  their  white  turbans,  Parsees, 
Mahrattas,  Afghans  and  Pathans.  Cantonese  and 
Manchus,  Malays,  Burmese,  Lascars,  as  well  as  all  the 

[112] 


HONG    KONG. 


races  of  Europe,  jostle  one  another  in  motley  cos- 
tumes and  strange  speech.  The  universal  tongue  is 
"pidgin  English,"  which  I  shall  describe  later. 

It  is  the  clearing-house  of  Asia.  Every  ship 
touches  here,  and  in  point  of  tonnage  it  is,  I  am  told, 
the  second  largest  port  in  the  world.  There  were 
over  fifty  ocean  steamers  in  the  harbor,  besides  river 
steamers,  junks  and  sampans  without  number.  It 
is  the  great  military  and  naval  station  of  England  in 
the  Far  East,  and  she  keeps  here  some  twenty  thou- 
sand soldiers  and  sailors,  and  on  the  Peak  is  a  great 
sanatorium  for  the  invalided.  The  Peak  is  one  of  the 
most  picturesque  of  hills ;  hardly  a  mountain,  bulky, 
irregular  in  shape,  and  it  is  the  home  of  all  who  can 
afford  to  escape  the  stifling  heat  of  the  town.  The 
difference  in  temperature  is  amazing.  In  the  town 
you  swelter,  and  in  twenty  minutes,  on  the  Peak 
above,  you  button  your  coat  and  hang  on  to  your 
hat.  A  funicular  railway  takes  you  up  about  two 
thousand  feet,  through  scenery  and  greenery  in  be- 
wildering variety ;  and  all  the  way  up,  on  every  but- 
tress, jut  and  foothold  are  great  stone  villas,  f with 
tropical  gardens  and  views  of  the  harbor  and  the  sur- 
rounding country  that  are  enchanting.    There  is  a 

[113] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

hotel,  very  good,  at  the  terminus  of  the  funicular,  and 
there  you  take  chairs  for  the  Peak  itself,  which  is  still 
a  thousand  feet  above  you. 

The  chairs  are  of  bamboo,  with  a  green  canopy  top, 
borne  by  two  men  on  their  shoulders,  who  trot  along 
with  a  jolting,  bobbing  motion  that  is  good  for  the 
liver  and  bad  for  the  temper.  I  have  not  been  carried 
since  I  was  a  baby,  and  don't  care  for  it.  The  sweat 
pours  off  the  brown  backs  of  the  chair-men,  the  sun 
beats  down  on  their  bare  heads,  and  if  you  have  any 
sensibilities  at  all  you  feel  for  those  coolies  and  it 
spoils  the  ride.  All  the  way  up  are  magnificent  roads, 
but  the  horse  is  absent.  Not  one  did  I  see  in  Hong 
Kong,  except  a  couple  of  polo  ponies  kept  for  sport, 
not  use.  Everything  is  carried  by  coolies,  men  and 
women  both,  on  their  shoulders.  Every  stick  and 
stone  for  the  great  barracks,  these  superb  villas, 
these  winding  roads  and  water-ways,  every  stick  of 
timber  and  furniture,  every  sack  of  lime  and  cement, 
has  been  lifted  two  or  three  thousand  feet  by  coolies. 
Man  is  cheaper  than  the  horse,  cheaper  than  steam, 
but  they  know  how  to  economize  effort,  and  it  is 
curious  to  watch  their  devices  to  save  time.  A  cooly 
woman  will  start  up  the  hill  with  three  loads.    She 

[114] 


HONG    KONG. 


carries  one,  say  a  hundred  yards,  sets  it  down  and 
goes  back  for  a  second,  sets  that  down  and  back  for 
a  third.  She  gets  a  rest  walking  downhill  unloaded, 
and  so  gets  the  three  loads  to  the  top  with  no  pause 
for  rest,  no  time  wasted.  She  swings  two  baskets 
from  a  bamboo  pole  and  walks  with  a  peculiar  swing- 
ing motion  that  keeps  the  load  always  over  the  foot 
that  is-  on  the  ground.  Twenty  cents  a  day  in  silver, 
ten  cents  a  day  gold,  is  the  wage,  and  every  stick  and 
stone  in  Hong  Kong  has  been  carried  in  that  way. 
Occasionally  a  heavy  stone  or  a  piece  of  machinery 
is  placed  on  a  cart,  but  that  is  drawn  by  coolies. 

Just  across  from  my  room  a  great  stone  block  is 
building.  The  stagings  are  of  bamboo  lashed  to- 
gether, not  a  nail  in  them.  Shelters  of  matting  keep 
off  the  sun  and  rain.  The  blocks  are  hoisted  by  hand 
and  the  work  goes  on  slowly  but  steadily  and  cheaply 
twelve  hours  a  day  and  no  Sundays.  The  cooly 
moves  slowly  but  he  never  stops.  He  neither  hastens 
nor  pauses. 

What  are  coolies  as  distinguished  from  other  Chi- 
nese? They  are  what  we  call  at  home  "common 
laborers,"  if  such  a  thing  exists  in  America. 

They  are  just  muscle.    They  are  bom  to  toil,  to 

[115] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

cany  burdens,  to  pull  rickshaws,  to  do  the  menial 
work,  to  bear  without  alleviation  the  Primal  Curse. 
Never  can  they  rise  or  change  their  condition.  They 
cannot  take  the  examinations  for  public  employment. 
They  and  their  women  and  children  for  all  time  must 
do  the  same.  The  brothels  of  the  East  are  recruited 
from  his  daughters  if  they  are  comely.  The  others 
must  labor  as  their  brothers  and  husbands  do,  at 
labor  that  seems  inhuman,  fit  only  for  beasts.  Their 
rank  and  station  is  fixed;  there  is  no  escape  from  it. 
They  sell  themselves  in  far-off  lands  to  toil  that  is 
almost  certain  death,  such  employment  as  the  Pan- 
ama Canal,  for  a  pittance  paid  in  advance  to  their 
families,  to  a  father  or  mother  too  old  to  work.  They 
are  the  most  industrious,  faithful,  frugal  self-denying 
class  in  the  world.  I  can  never  look  at  one  without 
a  pang.  They  are  so  honest,  so  patient,  so  kindly, 
they  get  so  little:  why  did  God  make  them  so? 
Their  desperate  poverty,  far  beneath  anything  you 
ever  see  at  home,  their  patience,  their  self-sacrifice, 
their  hopelessness,  are  sublimely  pathetic.  They 
dumbly  and  imconsciously  accuse  the  Universe,  the 
whole  Scheme  of  Things  as  they  are.  Is  God  just? 
Is  there  a  heaven  for  these  poor  creatures?    Will  it 

[116] 


HONG    KONG 


somewhere  be  made  up  to  them?  If  not,  there  is  no 
justice  anywhere.  The  scheme  fails  and  we  are  but 
the  jests  of  an  Idle  God. 

Some  facts  about  the  Chinese  stand  out  with  such 
startling  clarity,  they  are  so  certain  and  well  attested, 
that  you  cannot  escape  them;  and  one  is  their  hon- 
esty. You  may  ask  any  man  who  has  dealt  with 
them  and  he  will  tell  you  the  same,  that  they  are  the 
most  absolutely  honest  and  reliable  race  in  the  world. 
A  Chinese  merchant  will  commit  suicide  if  he  cannot 
meet  his  obligations.  He  will  suflter  any  loss,  he  will 
seU  himself  into  slavery  rather  than  fail  of  his  word. 
China  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  that  has  no 
law  for  the  collection  of  debt, — needs  none.  This 
statement  rests  not  upon  a  preponderance  of  the 
evidence :  it  is  unanimous ;  there  is  no  dispute  about 
it.  Every  man  in  the  East  will  tell  you  that  he  had 
rather  deal  with  the  Chinese  than  any  other  people  in 
the  world.  They  are  slow  in  a  bargain,  they  weigh 
every  penny,  but  their  word  once  given,  that  ends  it. 
You  need  no  bond,  no  guaranty ;  he  will  die  before  he 
will  shirk  one  jot  of  his  promise.  Those  who  deal 
with  the  Japanese  demand  an  iron-clad  bank  guaranty 
and  watch  them  besides.    With  the  Chinese,  the 

[117] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

naked  word  is  enough — no  writing,  no  bond,  just  his 
word.  I  could  tell  of  a  hundred  stories  I  have  heard 
that  illustrate  this;  stories  of  loss  and  suffering  borne 
uncomplainingly  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  fulfill- 
ment of  a  contract.  Just  this  morning  the  United 
States  District  Judge  for  the  District  of  Shanghai, 
in  a  suit  between  two  Americans  and  a  Chinese,  where 
the  evidence  rested  solely  on  the  word  of  the  Chinese 
disputed  by  both  Americans,  gave  judgment  for  the 
Chinese,  and  in  doing  so  said:  "It  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  Chinese  merchants  and  business  men  are 
honest  and  trustworthy  and  faithful  in  the  perform- 
ance of  their  obligations  under  their  contracts." 

Certainly  it  is  a  great  thing  to  have  established  such 
a  reputation  with  all  the  nations  that  deal  here,  so 
that  the  word  of  one  of  them  is  taken  by  an  alien 
judge  against  that  of  his  countryman.  So  that  Chi- 
nese has  become  a  synonym  for  honesty.  No  little 
thing,  that.  "Better  is  a  good  name  than  great 
riches."  The  Chinese  has  it.  He  is  no  fool;  he  is 
just  as  acute,  as  far-seeing,  just  as  shrewd  at  a  bar- 
gain, and  he  has  more  honesty  than  any  of  the  peo- 
ple who  deal  with  him;  and  there  he  holds  an  ad- 
vantage.    In  the  long  run  he  will  get  his  own  again. 

[118] 


HONG    KONG. 


He  is  recovering  his  own  trade,  and  he  will  retake 
Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai  some  day  as  he  has  retaken 
Macao.  All  over  the  East  the  cashiers  are  Chinese. 
Even  in  Japan,  in  banks  and  hotels,  the  boys  who 
handle  the  money  are  Chinese.  Not  only  is  he  hon- 
est, but  he  is  the  swiftest  and  most  accurate  account- 
ant in  the  world.  He  can  count  money  faster  than 
the  expert  teller  of  a  New  York  bank;  he  can  com- 
pute as  rapidly  as  a  machine,  and  he  never  makes  a 
mistake.  He  has  a  natural  head  for  figures,  and 
some  day  he  will  be  what  the  Phoenician  was  once, 
the  merchant  of  the  world.  He  knows  the  game,  he 
has  patience,  courtesy,  he  can  figure  a  profit  closer 
than  a  Jew  or  a  Scotchman.  Inch  by  inch  he  is  re- 
gaining his  trade,  by  reason  of  these  qualities. 

Whence  comes  this  superlative  honesty?  Con- 
fucius, some  say.  But  it  was  there  before  Confucius. 
It  is  racial,  like  the  laziness  of  the  Filipino,  the  shrewd- 
ness of  the  Yankee,  or  the  color  of  the  Negro.  Con- 
fucius was  one  of  the  most  practical  of  the  world's 
ethical  teachers.  You  hear  it  said  that  Confucius 
announced  the  Golden  Rule  long  before  Christ.  Not 
so.  One  of  his  pupils  suggested  it  to  him,  and  he 
commented  on  it  ironically  that  it  was  very  fine  but 

[119] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

very  difficult  to  attain.  It  is  written  that  way  in  his 
books.  Certainly  he  was  a  great  man,  and  he  re- 
mains today  in  China  the  greatest  ethical  force.  Bud- 
dhism for  a  while  swept  over  China  and  obscured 
him,  but  his  books  are  today  the  Chinese  classics. 
His  Book  of  Rites,  prescribing  the  forms  and  cere- 
monies of  Chinese  life,  is  the  authority.  His  wisdom, 
his  maxims,  are  the  rules  of  Chinese  morality,  and 
more  than  that,  Korea  and  Japan  have  sat  at  his  feet. 
The  Testament  of  lyeyasu,  the  first  of  the  great  Tok- 
agawa  Shoguns,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  docu- 
ments of  the  world,  akin  to  "The  Prince"  of  Machi- 
avelli,  is  filled  with  maxims  from  Confucius.  Con- 
fucius crystallized  and  codified  existing  Chinese  mo- 
rality, social  observances,  Governmental  systems  and 
rites,  gave  reasons  for  them,  enforced  them,  so  that 
they  remain  today  unchanged,  with  all  the  force  of 
law.  He  enforced  Ancestor  worship,  already  a  cult, 
and  so  made  it  a  part  of  Chinese  life  that  it  will  never 
be  extinguished.  Buddhism  prevailed  in  China  and 
Japan,  only  by  compromisng  with  this  religion,  by 
engrafting  Buddhism  upon  and  amalgamating  it 
with  Ancestor  Worship,  by  fully  recognizing  the  du- 
ties and  rites  of  this  religion.     The  Jesuits  had  great 

[120] 


HONG    KONG 


success  in  both  China  and  Japan,  so  long  as  they  tol- 
erated this  worship.  Indeed,  they  became  in  Japan 
a  national  danger. 

But  the  moment  Pope  Clement  at  the  Instance  of 
the  Dominicans  forbade  further  toleration,  Chris- 
tianity failed,  the  missions  languished,  disappeared, 
and  the  Christian  propaganda  in  the  East  has  made 
itself  felt  since,  only  as  a  forerunner  of  invasion,  an 
incitement  to  violence,  an  excuse  for  territorial  rob- 
bery. No  one  can  even  dimly  understand  these  two 
peoples,  the  Chinese  and  Japanese,  without  knowing 
something  of  this  religion,  as  I  have  said  before,  the 
most  ancient,  widely  spread,  permanent  and  influen- 
tial cult  the  world  has  known.  In  Japan  it  is 
"Shinto,"  "the  Way  of  the  Gods."  In  China  it  is 
loosely  called  Confucianism.  I  propose  to  sketch  it 
briefly,  and  perhaps  imperfectly. 

When  the  parent  dies,  he  does  not  go  to  some  dim 
far-off  heaven,  forgetting  in  its  joys  the  concerns  of 
earth.  He  lingers  about  his  home.  He  becomes  not 
exactly  a  God,  but  a  "higher  power."  He  can  help 
or  hurt  his  family.  He  can  bring  good  or  bad  for- 
tune. He  can  influence  the  elements,  bring  timely 
rains,  prevent  earthquakes  and  pestilence.     He  must 

[121] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

be  propitiated  by  offerings.  Before  his  tomb  in  China 
are  placed  flowers  and  tiny  offerings  of  food,  and  joss- 
sticks  are  burned.  In  Japan  these  offerings  are 
placed  before  the  ancestral  tablets  in  each  home.  It 
is  no  longer  thought  that  the  spirit  needs  food,  but  it 
is  pleased,  propitiated  by  the  remembrance.  It  fol- 
lows the  fortunes  of  the  family,  aids  it  if  pleased, 
injures  it  if  its  rites  are  neglected.  It  is  always 
present,  watches  all  that  is  done,  knows  all  that  is 
thought,  and  its  worship  must  be  done,  its  tablets 
handed  down,  and  the  rites  performed  in  the  male 
line.  If  there  be  no  son  of  the  body,  one  is  adopted 
who  can  keep  the  house,  the  tablets  or  the  tomb,  and 
perform  the  necessary  rites.  Unhappy  the  man  who 
has  no  son  to  bring  the  Water  of  the  Dead  to  wash 
his  corpse,  and  lay  the  rice  flowers  before  his  tomb. 
Hence  polygamy.  If  the  first  wife  is  childless,  a 
second  is  taken  to  bear  a  son,  a  third  or  a  fourth. 
Hence  the  undesirability  of  female  children,  and  the 
infanticide,  that  blots  the  Chinese  character. 

If  due  attention  is  paid  to  these  ancestral  rites, 
these  higher  powers  will  surround  the  family  with 
benign  influences,  avert  misfortune,  and  bring  health 
and  happiness.     In  short,  it  is  a  sort  of  family  spirit- 

[122] 


HONG    KONG. 


ualism.    Confucius  merely  expands  it,  codifies  and 
ritualizes  it. 

A  profound  belief  in  the  existence  and  immediate 
presence  of  a  host  of  ancestors  who  know  the  deeds 
and  thoughts  of  their  living  descendants,  who  are 
pleased  and  propitiated  with  filial  observances  and 
upright  conduct,  and  ofifended  at  wrong-doing,  must 
inevitably  and  deeply  affect  the  life  and  conduct  of 
the  believer.  He  cannot  sin  secretly,  for  they  know 
aU.  If  he  fails  of  his  duty  toward  them,  to  his  family 
or  his  people,  they  are  offended,  their  help  is  with- 
drawn and  misfortune  follows.  This  week  the  Im- 
perial family  are  offering  prayers  at  the  family  tombs, 
to  avert  a  drought  in  North  China.  They  account 
for  all  misfortunes  and  sorrows  by  some  failure  of 
these  observ^ances,  some  lapse  from  duty.  It  is  very 
real,  very  present,  perhaps  the  most  intimate  religion 
in  the  daily  life  of  a  people  that  the  world  knows.  It 
is  persistent.  Buddhism  and  Taoism  have  swept 
over  it  for  a  time,  but  it  has  survived  both,  and  Con- 
fucianism in  China  and  Shintoism  in  Japan  are  the 
state  religions,  the  religions  of  the  people.  Buddhism 
profoundly  influenced  both  races.  Its  temples  are 
everywhere  in  both  countries,  but  today  its  altars  are 

[123] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

deserted,  its  shrines  abandoned,  and  the  Old  Way 
has  conquered.  But  it  is  not  alone  to  the  dead  par- 
ent that  such  worship  and  affection  are  due.  The 
living  claim  it.  With  us  love  flows  downward.  We 
love  our  children,  and  they  love  theirs.  With  us 
parental  love  is  stronger  than  filial.  With  the  Chi- 
nese it  is  the  reverse.  Love  flows  upward  to  the 
source  of  life.  No  crime  is  so  dreadful  as  parricide. 
No  offense  so  great  as  neglect  of  one's  parents.  There 
are  innumerable  instances  of  coolies  who  sell  them- 
selves to  exile  in  some  foreign  land,  to  toil  that  surely 
means  death,  for  a  pittance  to  support  the  last  years 
of  a  father  or  mother  too  old  to  work. 

In  an  account  of  the  official  career  of  a  man  just 
appointed  as  Governor  of  one  of  the  important  prov- 
inces, it  was  noted  that  in  1890  he  resigned  a  lucrative 
appointment  in  Pekin  to  attend  upon  his  mother  in 
her  declining  years.  At  her  death  he  was  reappointed, 
but  he  spent  four  years  in  waiting  upon  her  alone. 
It  was  entirely  natural  here,  but  how  often  would  it 
occur  with  us?  It  follows,  too,  that  the  authority  of 
the  parent  is  supreme.  The  mother  selects  the  wife. 
The  father  is  the  absolute  master  of  the  son.  In 
both  countries  the  family  government  is  supreme, 

[124] 


CHINESE  PUNISHMENT. 


HONG    KONG. 


unquestioned,  and,  as  I  shall  later  show,  it  has  af 
fected  Japanese  life  as  profoundly  as  Chinese. 

We  made  our  headquarters  in  Hong  Kong  for  ten 
days  and  excursions  from  there  to  Canton  and  Macao. 
Aside  from  the  heat  it  was  delightful,  as  we  made 
many  charming  friends  among  the  English  and  Amer- 
icans. 

American  trade  in  the  East  is  languishing.  It  has 
never  recovered  from  the  boycott  of  two  years  ago. 
We  at  home  never  knew  how  serious,  how  effectual 
it  was.  From  Shanghai  to  the  Straits,  no  Chinaman 
would  buy  a  penny  of  American  goods.  The  Sperry 
Flour  Company,  the  largest  exporters  of  American 
flour,  lost  75  per  cent  of  their  trade  and  have  not  yet 
recovered  it.  For  thirty  days  the  Standard  Oil  Co. 
did  not  receive  a  single  Chinese  order.  It  gradually 
relaxed,  but  it  was  nearly  the  deathblow  to  our  trade. 
Our  shipments  have  fallen  off  in  the  last  two  years, 
while  the  English  and  Germans  have  gained  steadily. 
One  reason  for  this  is  that  Americans  will  not  take  the 
trouble  to  condition  their  goods  for  the  foreign  mar- 
ket. To  sell  in  China,  goods  must  be  prepared  and 
packed  in  a  certain  way,  and  in  packages  that  a  cooly 

[125] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

can  carry.  We  will  not  do  this.  Our  home  market 
is  so  great,  so  profitable,  that  we  do  not  care  for  the 
foreign  market;  do  not  think  it  worth  while  to  take 
this  trouble.  The  English  and  Germans  study  the 
trade  and  its  requirements  minutely,  and  go  to  any 
amount  of  trouble  to  satisfy  it.  As  a  result,  we  get 
only  what  they  must  buy  from  us  and  cannot  else- 
where. Clocks,  sewing-machines,  railway  material 
and  machinery  they  must  have  from  us.  Another 
reason  is  that  they  send  their  best  men  here,  we  send 
our  poorest,  and  this  is  particularly  true  of  our  consu- 
lar agents.  Our  consular  sei*vice  out  here  is  a  joke  with 
every  one.  A  bunch  of  second-rate  politicians,  with- 
out experience  or  fitness,  with  no  knowledge  of  trade 
and  commerce. 

A  conspicuous  exception  is  the  Standard  Oil.  They 
send  their  highest-priced  men  out  here,  and  have 
built  up  a  wonderful  business.  They  are  everywhere. 
At  Canton  I  saw  a  big  six-thousand-ton  tramp  un- 
loading oil  into  a  great  tank  station.  There  is  a 
great  storage  plant  at  Hong  Kong,  another  at  Shang- 
hai, and  they  have  broken  ground  for  a  big  refinery 
on  the  Yangste  above  Woosung.  The  engineer  in 
charge  of  it  was  number  two  engineer  on  the  great 

[126] 


HONG    KONG. 


Nile  dam  at  Assouan,  Egypt,  a  C.  E.  with  a  world- 
wide reputation.  That  is  the  kind  of  men  they  hire. 
I  was  told  that  they  have  on  the  water  en  route  for 
the  East  right  now,  eighteen  steamers  loaded  with 
crude  and  refined  oil.  While  we  are  chasing  them 
out  of  Arkansas  and  Missouri  and  Kansas,  they  are 
occupying  the  rest  of  the  earth.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  when  Peary  discovers  the  North  Pole  and  goes 
waltzing  up  to  raise  the  Stars  and  Stripes  he  will  find 
a  Standard  Oil  tank-field,  and  a  bunch  of  Standard 
men  convincing  the  natives  that  "Superior  Water 
White  Oil"  is  better  than  blubber. 

They  say  here  that  in  ten  years  the  Standard  can 
contemplate  the  home  market  with  indifference,  for 
they  will  have  the  rest  of  the  world, — no  competition 
and  no  anti-trust  laws.  It  is  the  only  American 
enterprise  that  is  making  headway  out  here.  They 
are  building  refineries  all  over  the  East,  because  it  is 
impossible  to  ship  gasoline  so  far;  labor  is  cheaper, 
and  the  by-products  bring  more.  Soon  nothing  but 
crude  oil  will  be  shipped  here. 

The  Americans  in  Hong  Kong  celebrated  the  glo- 
rious Fourth  at  the  Standard  Oil  offices,  a  whole  floor 
of  the  biggest  office  building  in  the  town,  a  celebration 

[127] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

that  consisted  chiefly  of  champagne  punch.  I  have 
seen  it  before,  but  I  never  saw  it  mixed  in  a  bath-tub. 
All  the  English  were  invited,  and  there  was  a  bath  for 
all ;  and  besides,  a  bucket  brigade  of  coolies  passing 
champagne  from  hand  to  hand  like  water-buckets  at  a 
fire.  Everyone  sang  "My  Country,  'tis  of  Thee," 
English  and  all,  and  occasionally  the  Standard  Oil 
boss,  who  looks  like  John  D.,  would  let  off  a  bunch  of 
Chinese  firecrackers,  each  one  of  which  makes  a  noise 
like  a  thirteen-inch  gun.  I  shall  not  forget  that  cel- 
ebration for  a  while,  nor  how  my  head  felt  on  the  5th. 

Hong  Kong  at  night  is  like  fairy-land.  The  fa- 
vorite way  to  cool  off  is  to  take  the  Kowloon  ferry  and 
cross  the  bay  a  couple  of  times.  From  Kowloon  the 
view  is  a  dream.  The  water-front  is  outlined  with 
blazing  shop-fronts  and  godowns,  and  from  this 
crescent  of  fire  the  city  arises  tier  on  tier,  thinning 
out  till  only  the  villas  remain,  each  aglow  with  light ; 
and  far,  far  above,  sometimes  above  clouds  of  mist, 
gleam  out  the  great  arc  signal-lights  of  the  Peak. 
One  of  the  world's  great  pictures  at  night  is  Hong 
Kong;    I  have  never  seen  anything  more  beautiful. 

Well,  the  "Hansui"  is  waiting.  Yonder  lies  Can- 
ton, seventy  miles  away,  in  the  heart  of  Old  China. 

[128] 


HONG    KONG. 


We  are  done  with  Hong  Kong,  and  from  the  big 
promenade  deck  we  watch  the  flare  of  its  Hghts  die 
down  and  down  till  they  disappear  and  the  cool  wind 
blows  from  off  the  rice-fields.    We  are  in  Cathay. 


[129] 


CANTON. 

It  was  a  considerable  city  two  thousand  years  ago, 
and  its  authentic  history  dates  back  so  far.  For 
more  than  a  thousand  years  it  has  been  the  most  im- 
portant town  in  South  China,  and  is  pure  Chinese, 
body  and  bone,  as  distinguished  from  Pekin,  which  is 
Manchu,  the  race  of  the  conquerors,  a  branch  of  the 
Kin  Tartars,  from  whom  Manchuria  takes  its  name. 

The  Ming  or  "Bright"  dynasty,  the  last  of  the 
Chinese  emperors,  was  overthrown  by  the  Manchus 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  they 
have  since  held  the  throne.  The  present  Emperor, 
Kuang  Hsui,  is  childless,  nearly  imbecile,  and,  as 
everyone  knows,  that  extraordinary  woman  Tsi  An, 
the  Dowager  Empress,  born  a  slave,  rules  while  the 
Emperor  plays  with  American  clocks  or  amuses  him- 
self in  his  abundantly  stocked  harem. 

The  Yangste  river  is  the  dividing-line:  south  is 
pure  Chinese;  north,  Manchu.  In  Canton  we  shall  see 
a  city  purely  Chinese;  nothing  else  save  the  soldiers 
and  policemen,  "who  are  Manchu.    In  Pekin  we  shall 

[130] 


CANTON. 


see  nothing  but  Manchus,  save  a  few  officials.  The 
Cantonese  are  the  merchants  and  traders,  the  Man- 
chus the  warriors.  Confucius  was  from  the  south,  and 
his  abhorrence  of  war,  contempt  for  soldiers,  and 
admiration  for  the  arts  of  peace,  have  stamped  all 
South  China. 

In  the  south  has  always  been  great  disaffection 
toward  the  reigning  family.  Here  the  Taiping  rebels 
made  head  in  1860,  held  Nanking  and  Old  Shanghai 
and  all  the  souths  and  practically  divided  the  empire 
in  half.  Had  it  not  been  for  Ward  and  Burlingame, 
two  American  adventurers,  who  organized  the  Im- 
perial forces  into  the  "Ever  Victorious  Army,"  and 
Chinese  Gordon,  who  later  commanded  and  led  it  to 
victory,  there  would  probably  be  two  Chinas  today. 
Gordon,  a  Christian  fanatic,  a  very  great  man,  made 
his  reputation  before  the  walls  of  Nankin,  and  gave 
his  life  at  Khartoum,  a  victim  to  the  bitter  prejudice 
and  cowardly  foreign  policy  of  Gladstone. 

By  the  way,  how  many  of  my  readers  know  of  the 
vastness  of  that  Tai-Ping  Rebellion,  that  bloody 
drama  of  internecine  warfare  that  worked  out  in 
China  almost  without  notice  by  the  world?  When 
I  tell  you  that  in  that  war,  lasting  less  than  three 

[131] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

years,  more  blood  and  treasure  were  sacrificed  than 
in  our  War  of  the  Rebellion  and  the  Russo-Japanese 
War  combined,  you  will  get  some  idea  of  what  a  vast 
country  this  China  is.  More  than  twenty  million 
lives  were  sacrificed  in  that  one  war.  Whole  cities 
were  destroyed  and  every  inhabitant  massacred,  and 
yet  so  vast  is  the  population  of  China,  so  great  its 
resources,  that  the  ravages  of  that  gigantic  conflict 
were  more  speedily  repaired  than  those  of  our  War  of 
the  Rebellion. 

We  reached  Canton  by  a  magnificent  river  steamer 
from  Hong  Kong  in  the  early  morning,  and  after 
breakfast  on  the  boat,  found  our  guide  Ah  Kow  await- 
ing us.  Not  only  is  it  unsafe  to  go  through  Canton 
without  a  guide,  where  the  anti-foreign  feeling  is 
intense  and  bitter,  but  it  is  impossible.  I  defy  any 
European  to  find  his  way  in  that  Chinese  city.  You 
think  because  you  have  seen  Mott  street  in  New  York 
or  Chinatown  in  San  Francisco,  that  you  have  seen 
a  Chinese  town.  Bah !  They  resemble  each  other  as 
much  as  a  pimple  and  a  cancer.  With  our  guide  were 
chairs  for  the  party,  for  the  streets  are  so  narrow  that 
not  even  a  Chinese  wheelbarrow  is  used  there.    You 

[132] 


CANTON. 


must  be  carried  in  chairs,  three  bearers  to  each,  in- 
cluding Ah  Kow's,  a  very  gaudy  affair  with  screens 
and  gauze  curtains  while  oui-s  are  plain  and  open,  and 
to  ray  solidity  are  allotted  four  stalwart  fellows.  We 
make  quite  a  procession,  the  four  chairs  and  thirteen 
bearers,  as  we  leave  the  wharf,  and  plunge  into  the 
sunless  streets  of  Canton, — ^three  Americans  to  two 
million  Chinese,  every  one  of  whom  hates  us  and  would 
be  glad  of  any  excuse  to  mob  us.  Not  very  pleasant 
to  think  of.  And  how  shall  I  describe  the  town? 
Hereafter  when  I  have  the  nightmare  I  shall  dream 
of  Canton. 

A  narrow  river  of  yellow  faces,  with  shaven  fore- 
heads, faces  hostile,  sinister,  sardonic,  sneering  at  the 
Foreign  Devils.  Tall  houses,  narrow  streets,  three 
to  foiu"  feet  wide,  overhead  screens  of  matting  to  shut 
out  what  little  sunlight  might  penetrate  these  gloomy 
alleys.  Fantastic  signs  in  green  and  gold  and  black, 
with  strange  hieroglyphics,  waving  banners  and  gro- 
tesque lanterns;  a  babel  of  raucous,  guttural  voices 
babbling  strange,  meaningless  sounds,  our  chairs 
swaying  and  bobbing  above  the  current  of  this  end- 
less river  of  inhuman  faces,  threatening  any  moment 
to  be  submerged  and  overwhelmed;    ten  thousand 

[133] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

stinks  and  stenches,  strange  condiments,  fish,  flesh 
and  fowl,  monstrously  dressed  and  displayed,  thou- 
sands of  human  ants  busy  at  unguessable  occupa- 
tions, and  over  all  an  Inferno  of  heat.  Heat  such 
as  we  never  know, — close,  humid,  compounded  of  a 
tropical  sim,  old  sun-baked  walls,  and  the  emanation 
of  thousands  of  s winking  bodies.  A  heat  that  is  like 
a  pall  from  which  there  is  no  escape.  Never  a  breath 
of  fresh  air,  an  open  space,  a  tree,  plant  or  flower, — 
ever  the  same  endless,  narrow  ravines  filled  with 
sweltering  inhumanity.  To  add  to  my  comfort, 
prickly  heat  had  broken  out  on  me  that  morning, 
from  my  heels  to  my  hair.  It  was  as  though  I  was 
enveloped  in  one  large  comprehensive  mustard- 
plaster  instead  of  clothing.  I  looked  like  a  prairie- 
fire  and  felt  like  a  fly-blister. 

Canton  is  famous  for  its  porcelain,  embroideries, 
silks,  muslins,  and  above  all  for  Mandarin  coats,  just 
now  the  fad  for  ladies'  evening  wear.  So  our  first 
errand  was  to  the  shops,  and  for  four  hours  I  sat  in 
my  nice  warm  mustard-bath  while  A.  and  F.  tried  on 
Mandarin  coats,  pawed  over  silks  and  embroideries, 
priced  jades  and  ivories,  and  invoked  aU  the  gods  of 
womankind  in  admiration  of  the  bargains,  while  Ah 

[134] 


CANTON. 


Kow,  an  old  hand,  smoked  endless  cigars  and  smiled. 
Such  bargaining.  ' '  How  much  for  this  coat  ?  "  "  One 
hundred  forty  dollar"  ($70  gold).  Ah  Kow  would 
light  another  cigar.  "  You  like  him,  Missee?"  "Yes." 
"Seventy  dollar."  Then  the  merchant  would  explain 
that  it  meant  ruin  to  sell  for  less  than  a  hundred.  He 
would  have  to  sell  his  wife  and  daughters.  Ah  Kow 
would  smoke  and  reiterate  monotonously,  "Seventy 
dollar."  Then  we  would  start  to  leave  and  the  price 
would  drop  "Ninety  dollar,"  "Eighty  dollar,"  and 
then  just  in  the  street  with  a  gesture  of  despair,  the 
merchant  would  fold  it  up,  take  his  seventy  dollars 
and  go  back  to  chuckle  over  his  profit.  A  Chinese 
would  have  gotten  it  for  fifty  or  sixty. 

But  after  all  the  prices  are  amazing.  Embroidered 
grass-linen  dress  patterns,  exquisite  in  design  and 
workmanship,  for  twelve  dollars ;  that  would  be  fifty 
at  home.  Table  sets  at  a  fifth  of  the  home  price. 
Hand-woven  silks,  "like  wrinkled  skins  on  scalded 
milk,"  yet  firm  as  iron,  for  fifty  cents  a  yard. 

F.  is  perhaps  the  worst  bargainer  imaginable  with 
these  people.  She  would  pick  up  a  plate.  "How 
much?"  "Twelve  dollars  one  dozen,"  fifty  cents 
apiece  gold.    Then  she  would  turn  to  me.     "Do  you 

[135] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

know  what  we  pay  for  these  at  home? — two  and  three 
dollars  a  plate."  Mr.  Chinese  hears  her,  and  there 
goes  my  bargain  a-glimmering. 

He  sees  at  once  that  we  are  suckers  from  U.  S.  A., 
where  money  grows  on  bushes  and  the  streets  are 
paved  with  gold,  and  we  get  soaked  accordingly. 
The  lowest  price  is  usually  set  in  the  street  and  just 
before  we  enter  another  shop. 

Well,  I  admit  that  these  Canton  shops  are  a  great 
temptation;  such  beautiful  things  those  patient, 
ill-paid  artisans  turn  out,  so  astonishingly  cheap. 
The  moment  an  American  woman  reaches  here  she 
is  seized  with  Dementia  Shoppiana.  You  can  tell 
from  the  wildness  of  her  eye,  the  way  her  lips  mutter 
calculations  reducing  Mexican  dollars  to  gold.  She 
is  unconscious  of  the  flight  of  time.  Life  and  death, 
home,  friends,  even  her  personal  appearance,  are  for- 
gotten in  Frenzied  Finance,  and  the  Devil  of  the 
Bargain  Counter  posesses  her  wholly. 

But  there  are  other  things  besides  shops.  We 
saw  the  Buddhist  temple  of  the  Five  Hundred  Gods, 
— 500,  count  them, — each  gilded  and  smiling  vacu- 
ously at  the  Foreign  Devils  just  as  he  has  smiled  for 

[136] 


-WATER  CLOCK,  CANTON. 


CANTON. 


six  hundred  years,  till  their  gilt  is  tarnished,  their 
worship  forgotten,  their  altars  deserted,  and  only  one 
toothless  old  bald-headed  priest  remains  to  show 
their  faded  glories  for  a  trifling  tip  and  explain  the 
names  and  attributes  of  these  forgotten  deities.  One 
surprise,  seated  among  these  imaginary  gods,  ruffed 
and  be  whiskered,  is  the  counterfeit  presentment  of 
an  old  friend,  old  man  Marco  Polo,  over  whose  book 
I  pored  more  years  ago  than  I  care  to  remember. 
He  who  was  the  first  European  to  visit  the  court  of 
Cathay,  some  six  or  seven  hundred  years  ago.  The 
Khan  loved  him,  and  had  his  statue  placed  here. 
Esteemed  the  Boss  Liar  of  his  time  for  many  hundred 
years,  later  travelers  confirmed  him,  and  while  his 
wooden  statue  has  slowly  lost  its  gilt  and  his  worship 
has  faded  here,  his  reputation  at  home  has  been 
cleaned  up  and  Marco  is  one  of  the  immortals.  I  felt 
like  shaking  hands  with  him.  It  was  a  breath  from 
the  Long  Past. 

Then  we  went  to  a  real  Chinese  temple,  where  are 
sixty  gods,  one  for  each  year  of  the  Chinese  cycle, 
and  the  true  believer  bums  his  joss-sticks  before  the 
god  that  stands  for  the  year  of  his  age.  When  he  has 
run  the  gamut  of  the  sixty  he  starts  over  again  at 

[137] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

number  one.  A  very  comfortable  worship.  No 
picking  and  choosing  among  the  saints  for  your  patron, 
and  doubting  if  you  ought  not  to  go  to  some  other. 
It  is  all  laid  down  by  rule. 

We  "tiffined"  on  the  city  wall,  far  above  the  noi- 
some city,  where  we  could  look  out  over  the  green 
countryside,  and  see  the  tombs,  the  far-off  hills,  the 
winding  rivers  and  canals,  and  get  a  breath  of  fresh 
air.  We  saw  the  great  nine-storied  pagoda  that 
dominates  the  city,  and  far  off  the  Roman  Catholic 
Cathedral, — the  Old  and  the  New.  Just  why  the 
pagodas  are  nearly  all  nine-storied,  not  even  Ah  Kow 
could  tell.  We  saw  one  on  the  river  between  Canton 
and  Macao  so  old  that  a  great  cedar  tree  fully  fifty 
feet  high  was  growing  from  its  top.  The  city  wall  of 
Canton  is  much  like  that  of  Manila,  a  Middle-Age 
structure  still  mounted  with  smooth-bores  and 
guarded  by  a  great  moat  that  is  given  over  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  celery  now.  We  ate  our  lunch  brought 
from  the  boat,  in  an  old  tea-house,  where  the  Manda- 
rins of  the  city  come  for  their  tiffin,  bring  their  food 
and  cooks,  and  get  drunk  on  tea.  We  bought  tea 
for  ourselves  and  "chow"  for  the  bearers.  Five 
cents  apiece  it  cost  me,  and  they  ate  so  much  they 

[138] 


CANTON. 


could  hardly  waddle.  They  had  carried  us  five 
hours,  up  and  down  hills  and  stone  steps,  through 
tortuous  streets,  dodging  loaded  coolies,  setting  us 
down  and  taking  us  up  with  much  grunting  and  many 
gutturals ;  and  when  they  got  the  remnant  of  our  ham 
and  chicken  and  lychees  and  bananas  they  came  and 
kowtowed  to  us  as  though  we  had  given  them  a  feast. 
Poor  devils,  so  patient  and  good-natured,  and  when 
night  came  and  I  paid  them  off,  their  regular  wage  of 
twenty-five  cents  of  our  money  and  then  gave  each 
one  five  cents  for  a  tip,  they  camped  before  the  hotel 
for  an  hour,  in  hopes  of  another  job. 

Really  I  grow  sentimental  over  these  coolies. 
They  are  the  downtrodden  of  the  most  downtrodden 
people  of  the  world.  Everyone  abuses  them,  tramps 
on  them,  looks  down  on  them,  speaks  to  them  as  I 
would  not  speak  to  an  American  dog,  and  they  bear 
it  patiently,  and  yet  they  are  human.  "Man  made 
He  in  his  own  image."  How  often  we  forget  that  in 
the  Far  East.  No  wonder  they  hate  us.  Some  day 
they  will  rise  up  and  cast  us  out.  We  take  their  land; 
we  override  and  trample  on  them,  desecrate  their 
tombs;  and  mind  you,  "the  tomb  of  his  fathers,"  is 
not  an  empty  phrase  with  these — it  is  the  most  sacred 

[139] 


T'HE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

thing  in  the  world.  We  send  them  missionaries  to 
give  them  a  religion  they  don't  want,  and  when  they 
reject  it  we  make  that  an  excuse  to  steal  some  more 
land.  They  have  their  faults — God  knows  we  all  do. 
Their  system  of  human  slavery  is  a  blot,  but  it  is  not 
so  long  ago  that  we  had  it,  and  theirs  is  much  more 
humane  than  ours  was.  They  are  cruel  about  some 
things,  but  they  had  a  complex,  highly  organized 
civilization  when  we  were  naked  savages. 

Some  day  the  Big  Man  will  come  and  China  will 
Wake  Up.  "When  she  does,  look  out.  Already  the 
leaven  is  working.  We  passed  four  newspaper  offices, 
printing  on  American  presses,  Chinese  newspapers. 
In  every  store  were  newspapers  and  men  reading 
them.  The  press  is  comparatively  free  here — much 
freer  than  it  is  in  Germany,  for  instance.  The  finest 
building  in  Canton  is  a  newspaper  office,  native,  and 
every  one  above  the  cooly  class  can  read  and  write. 
They  are  thinking,  discussing,  criticizing.  The  Man- 
darins are  accountable  now  as  they  never  were  before. 
The  Giant  is  beginning  to  turn  over  in  his  sleep  and 
ask  what  time  it  is.  Four  hundred  millions  of  them, 
just  as  brave  as  anyone  if  they  are  led.  The  most  in- 
dustrious and  frugal  people  in  the  world.    Here  is 

[140] 


CANTON. 


the  Yellow  Peril,  not  in  Japan.  Japan  has  shot  her 
bolt.  I-ike  a  squab,  she  was  biggest  when  first 
hatched.  She  is  poor.  She  cannot  long  maintain 
her  armament.  She  will  pass,  but  China  is  rich, 
richer  than  we  dream  of,  in  money,  resources,  and, 
above  all,  people. 

Just  as  we  were  leaving  the  tea-house  after  tiffin, 
came  some  twenty  Mandarins,  the  civil  and  military 
officers  of  Canton,  giving  a  farewell  dinner  to  their 
Supreme  Judge,  who  is  retiring,  a  magnificent-looking 
old  man.  And  believe  me,  there  were  some  fine 
faces  among  those  Mandarins.  Big,  clear-eyed, 
stately  men,  recruited,  mind  you,  by  the  most  stren- 
uous system  of  civil-service  examination  in  the  world 
from  the  commonalty.  Hereditary  titles  and  honors 
are  few  in  China.  Nine-tenths  of  her  officials  come 
from  the  middle  class,  raise  themselves  by  merit  and 
superior  mental  power. 

Tsi  An  by  imperial  decree  has  ordered  that  China 
shall  have  a  Constitution,  a  Parliamentary  Govern- 
ment. What  do  you  think  of  that?  Is  not  China 
waking  up?  It  is  not  to  be  this  year,  but  just  as  soon 
as  the  suggestions  that  have  been  asked  for  from 
every  class  can  be  collated  and  analyzed  and  put  in 

[  141  ] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

form.  The  material  is  ready,  and  within  five  years 
China  will  be  measurably  self-governed.  Oh,  that 
old  Tsi  An  is  a  great  woman.  She  reads  the  times, 
and  China  is  today  a  thousand  years  ahead  of  Russia 
in  the  intelligence  of  her  lower  classes  and  the  virtue 
of  her  higher. 

Well,  I  did  not  intend  to  talk  Chinese  politics  here. 
I  will  do  that  when  I  go  to  Shanghai,  which  is  the 
Copeland  County  of  China. 

We  descended  once  more  to  the  city.  We  saw  the 
City  of  the  Dead,  a  beautiful  place,  where  the  better 
class  are  kept  till  their  tombs  are  ready,  or  sometimes 
till  transport  can  be  had  to  their  native  tombs.  We 
saw  the  great  Mandarin  coffins  hollowed  from  a 
single  log  of  teak  or  cherry,  beautifully  polished, 
and  before  it  the  ever-burning  joss-sticks  and  the  rice 
and  flowers.  And  we  saw  the  Water  Clock.  Ever 
hear  of  it?  I  did  when  I  was  at  school  some  sixty  or 
seventy  years  ago.  I  think  it  was  an  illustration  of 
hydrostatics  or  biology;  I  don't  remember  now.  It 
is  in  a  lofty  tower  over  the  principal  street  of  the  city. 
A  stone  receptacle  permits  four  drops  of  water  a 
second  to  fall  into  a  stone  tub,  in  which  there  is  a  float 

[142] 


CANTON. 


with  a  brass  graduate  fixed  to  it.  As  the  water  fills 
the  lower  tub  the  graduate  rises  and  marks  the  flight 
of  time  by  hours.  Every  two  hours  the  attendant 
sets  out  a  great  announcing-board,  with  the  hour  on, 
and  Canton's  two  millions  take  their  time  and  appoint 
their  tasks  b>  that.  For  six  hundred  years  this  simple 
mechanism  has  ordered  the  daily  life  of  the  Cantonese. 
But  like  the  Buddhist  gods,  its  day  is  done.  Every 
store  has  an  American  clock,  nearly  every  household. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  "the  old  order  change.th." 

And  finally,  after  pricing  more  jades  and  things, 
we  left  Canton  for  the  Shameen,  the  English  concession 
on  an  island,  separated  by  a  narrow  canal  from  the 
old  city.  There  we  found  an  English  hotel  and  dis- 
missed Ah  Kow  and  the  coolies.  For  myself,  I 
crawled  into  a  hot  bath,  tried  to  soak  off  the  heat- 
blisters,  doped  myself  with  talcum  powder,  got  into 
my  pajamas,  and  on  the  wide  cool  veranda  of  my  room 
sought  to  forget  my  troubles. 

Certainly  I  deserved  a  martyr's  crown.  If,  when 
I  reach  the  Pearly  Gates,  St.  Peter  shall  ask  me  what 
conspicuous  thing  I  have  done  to  deserve  admittance. 
I  shall  promptly  answer,  ''I  shopped  all  day  in  Canton 
without  cussing  once."    That  ought  to  get  me  in. 

[143] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Job  is  a  back  number.  He  may  have  deserved  some 
celebrity  in  his  time,  but  I  have  taken  his  place.  I 
ate  my  dinner  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  costume  of 
our  First  Parents,  and  was  happy.  Captain  C.  of 
one  of  our  gunboats  called  on  us,  and  we  had  a  de- 
lightful hour  with  him.  What  a  cracking  fine  set  of 
fellows  our  naval  officers  are!  They  are  about  all 
that  save  our  face  in  the  Far  East.  People  that  can 
turn  out  such  big,  clean-limbed,  well-set-up,  clear- 
headed chaps  as  they  must  amount  to  something,  so 
the  foreigner  thinks ;  and  he  is  right.  They  play  too 
much  poker  and  drink  too  much  whisky,  but  so  do 
most  people  out  here.  But  their  ships  are  the  pret- 
tiest, trimmest,  best  kept,  their  jackies  are  the  finest- 
looking,  and  the  Old  Flag  is  the  most  beautiful  ban- 
ner the  winds  ever  blew.  It  makes  you  choke  up 
and  get  kind  of  lumpy  in  your  throat  when  you  see  it 
above  one  of  our  big  white  ships  out  here.  It  stands 
for  so  much,  and  if  you  have  any  piety  in  you  you 
thank  God  you  were  born  an  American. 

Well,  we  sat  on  our  veranda  and  watched  the  water- 
faring  folks  of  Canton, — another  city,  by  the  way. 
There  are  two  million  people  in  Canton.  It  seems 
incredible,  for  from  the  great  five-storied  watch-tower 

[144] 


CANTON. 


on  the  city  wall  you  can  take  it  in  at  a  glance,  but 
they  are  there,  and  there  is  another  million  who  are 
bom,  live  and  die  on  the  water.  They  swarm  like 
flies,  and  breed  about  as  fast.  They  live  on  their 
boats.  They  never  touch  foot  to  the  ground  save  on 
necessary  business.  The  land  folk  do  not  intermarry 
with  them.  Ah  Kow  says,  "They  are  low  people, 
very  low."  They  are  a  pariah  caste.  They  navigate 
the  vast  internal  system  of  water-ways  that  intersect 
this  part  of  China  with  innumerable  shallow  ducts. 
They  supply  Canton  with  food  and  take  away  its 
products.  They  carry  fowls  and  pigs  on  their  boats, 
they  are  homes  and  shelters  for  them,  and  there  they 
marry  and  breed,  live  and  die.  I  think  I  said  there 
were  no  wheeled  vehicles  in  Canton,  nor  outside  that 
I  saw.  You  strike  not  even  a  country  cart  till  you 
reach  Shanghai,  where  you  first  see  the  one-wheeled 
Chinese  barrow  built  for  the  two-foot  roads,  the  only 
ones  China  has.  Every  particle  of  food  and  drink 
for  two  millions  of  people,  all  they  use,  wear,  work 
with  and  manufacture,  and  all  the  offal  and  garbage 
of  a  great  city,  are  carried  in  and  out  on  the  backs  of 
men  and  women.  All  they  consume  and  produce 
and  throw  away  is  "toted." 

[145] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

One  thing  I  learned  in  Canton,  and  that  is  to  do 
without  water  on  a  hot  day.  All  that  boiling  day  I 
drank  nothing,  except  some  tea  at  tiffin.  Do  not 
smile — there  is  nothing  stronger  than  tea  to  be  had 
in  Canton.  The  water  comes  from  wells,  that  are 
little  better  than  sewers.  No  one  but  a  Chinaman 
could  drink  it  and  live.  This  old,  old  land,  swarming 
for  thousands  of  years  with  a  teeming  population, 
is  infected,  every  inch  of  it,  with  the  feculence  and 
decay  of  humanity.  More  than  that,  night-soil  is 
the  universal  fertilizer  here.  Not  a  particle  is  wasted. 
There  are  no  sewers.  All  is  carried  out  by  coolies 
to  be  spread  out  on  the  land.  It  follows  that  Euro- 
peans do  not  eat  Chinese-grown  vegetables.  In  fact. 
Dr.  Strong,  head  of  the  Philippine  biological  labora- 
tory, assures  me  that  lettuce  in  the  Far  East  is  pos- 
itively deadly  to  a  white  man.  No  one  eats  it.  Talk 
of  bacteria — you  can't  get  away  from  them  here. 
Naturally,  epidemic  diseases  are  as  common  as  a  cold 
at  home.  Wherever  Europeans  locate  they  organize 
their  own  settlements,  with  a  water-supply,  sewerage, 
and  garbage  removal,  and  so  they  live  here.  Not 
one  European  in  a  hundred  can  live  in  a  Chinese  city. 
Thousands  of  years  of  it  have  some  way  fortified  the 

[146] 


CANTON. 


Chinese  constitution  to  it ;  they  are  in  a  way  immune. 
In  Manila  even,  no  one  drinks  anything  but  distilled 
water.  An  American  city  that  used  Canton  water 
would  have  a  perennial  epidemic  of  typhoid,  but  the 
Chinese  do  not.  They  have  the  bubonic  plague,  the 
Black  Death  of  the  Middle  Ages,  most  of  the  time,  but 
it  seldom  affects  Europeans.  Cholera  occasionally, 
typhoid  very  seldom. 

Well,  I  was  talking  of  the  water  life  of  Canton. 
One  of  its  features  is  the  Flower  Boats,  where  girls  are 
bought  for  sale  and  entertainment.  These  boats  are 
great  barges  with  two-  and  three-story  structures  on 
them,  beautifully  fitted  up  in  Chinese  style.  It  is 
always  cool  on  the  water,  and  here  dinners  are  given 
and  flower  girls  sing  and  converse  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  guests.  These  girls  are  bought  when 
young,  and  especially  trained  to  entertain  men.  They 
are  taught  to  converse,  to  amuse,  to  sing.  They  are 
often  bought  as  secondary  wives  by  rich  Chinese,  or 
given  as  presents  to  placate  a  great  official.  One  was 
sold  for  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  gold  while  I  was 
in  Canton.  They  are  slaves  pure  and  simple,  but  it 
is  gilded  slavery,  with  no  hardship,  and  according  to 
their  notions  it  is  all  right.    I  could  tell  some  queer 

[147] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

stories  I  have  heard  about  these  boats,  but  this  stuff 
has  to  go  through  the  mails.  Most  of  them  come 
from  the  lower  classes,  but  not  necessarily.  For 
instance,  the  other  day  the  Governor  of  a  province 
with  an  unpronounceable  and  unspellable  name  was 
assassinated  while  visiting  a  school,  by  its  head- 
master and  founder,  a  man  of  education  and  property. 
It  was  believed  to  be  part  of  an  anti-monarchical 
plot,  for  there  is  quite  a  party  of  that  faith  in  China. 
The  assassin  was  arrested  two  days  later  and  instantly 
beheaded.  His  wife  and  daughters  were  sold  into 
slavery,  his  two  sons  above  sixteen  decapitated, 
and  his  two  younger  sons  made  eunuchs  for  the  royal 
palace.    That  is  Chinese  justice. 

By  the  way,  I  had  nearly  forgotten  the  Execution 
ground  where  Cantonese  criminals  are  beheaded.  It 
is  a  long,  narrow  inclosure,  in  ordinary  times  a  pot- 
tery. When  there  is  head-chopping  to  be  done  the 
pots  and  shards  are  set  one  side  and  the  official  ex- 
ecutioner does  his  work.  We  met  him,  a  placid, 
benign-faced,  middle-aged  man,  who  has  himself  be- 
headed more  than  a  thousand  men.  Think  of  it ! — as 
many  as  thirty  criminals  have  been  decapitated  there 
within  an  hour.    When  there  is  a  big  batch  it  takes 

[  148.0 


CANTON. 


several  headsmen.  Ah  Kow  explained  that  it  was 
"belly  hard  work,  make  him  plenty  much  tired;" 
that  about  four  was  the  limit  of  a  day's  work  for  one 
executioner.  The  victim  is  forced  to  kneel,  a  man 
pulls  the  queue  forward  to  expose  the  neck,  the  short 
sword  falls  with  a  drawing  motion,  and  the  head  rolls 
on  the  ground.  They  never  bungle  it  as  they  did 
with  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  It  is  clean-cut  and  artistic. 
Last  September  the  thirty-one  Kow  Shing  pirates 
were  beheaded  there,  and  this  narrow  strip  of  ground 
has  soaked  the  blood  of  thousands.  You  see  we  are 
back  in  the  Middle  Ages  here.  Piracy  still  flourishes. 
A  month  ago  a  band  of  them  seized  an  English  tramp 
and  looted  her,  but  let  the  crew  go.  I  have  some  pic- 
tures of  there  things  that  are  very  realistic.  I  may 
have  the  happy  fortune  to  see  one  of  these  killings. 
In  fact,  if  I  were  a  big  gun  I  should  be  sure  to,  for  the 
Viceroy  is  a  kindly  man,  and  will  have  a  couple  of 
heads  chopped  off  any  time  to  gratify  a  distinguished 
visitor. 

Well,  we  watched  the  river-boats  light  up  with 
Standard  Oil  kerosene,  in  lamps  made  in  the  U.  S.  A., 
and  half  the  night  they  chattered  and  made  it  hideous 
with  guttural  noises. 

[149] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

My  dinner  tasted  of  Canton.  It  took  me  two  days 
to  get  rid  of  the  taste  of  those  smells.  They  had 
soaked  clear  into  me,  and  not  till  I  reached  the  kindly 
shelter  of  the  Boa  Vista  at  Macao  did  I  really  relish 
my  meals.    We  will  go  there  next. 


[150] 


MA  C AO . 

"  Gem  of  the  Orient  earth  and  open  sea, 
Macao,  that  in  thy  lap  and  on  thy  breast 
TIast  gathered  beauties  all  the  loveliest, 
Which  the  sun  shines  on  in  majesty. 

"The  very  clouds  that  top  each  mountain's  crest 
Seem  to  repose  there  lovingly. 
How  full  of  grace  the  green  Cathayan  tree 
Bends  to  the  breeze;   and  now  thy  sands  are  prest 

"With  gentlest  waves  that  ever  and  anon 
Break  their  awakened  furios  on  thy  shore. 
Were  these  the  scenes  that  poet  looked  upon 
Whose  life,  'though  known  to  fame,  knew  misery 
more'?" 

How  many  people  know  where  Macao  is?  I  had 
heard  the  name  vaguely.  I  knew  that  it  was  some- 
where in  the  East,  and  that  Camoens  wrote  there  the 
"Lusiad,"  the  only  great  poem  by  a  Portuguese.  As 
soon  as  I  left  San  Francisco  and  began  to  get  ac- 
quainted on  the  ship,  I  heard  of  Macao.  "Don't 
fail  to  go  to  Macao."  "Why?"  "Because  it  is  the 
gambling-hell  of  the  East,  the  unique  gambling  es- 
tablishment of  the  world." 

That  was  all — ^just  the  gambling.  No  one  who  men- 
tioned it  seemed  to  have  observed  that  it  is  one  of 

[151] 


THIE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

the  most  beautiful  spots  in  the  world,  an  old  Portu- 
guese town,  that  was  a  well-built  city  before  James- 
town was  thought  of ;  that  it  marks  the  first  European 
settlement  in  China;  that  it  has  nearly  every  ad- 
vantage possible  of  situation,  climate,  and  quaintness. 
That  is  the  way  with  travelers:  we  most  of  us  see 
but  one  thing,  the  aspect  that  attracts  and  interests 
us.  There  is  an  East-Indian  story  of  three  beggars, 
bom  blind,  who  desired  to  know  what  an  elephant 
was  like.  So  they  were  led  up  to  an  elephant.  One 
of  them  happened  to  grab  the  elephant  by  the  tail, 
and  exclaimed,  "Why,  an  elephant  is  just  like  a  rope !" 
The  second  had  butted  into  his  side,  and  he  asserted 
that  an  elephant  was  exactly  like  a  brick  wall ;  while 
the  third,  who  found  his  trunk,  declared  that  an  ele- 
phant was  shaped  like  a  serpent;  and  they  fell  to 
blows  over  their  opinions. 

Most  people  go  through  the  world  blind  or  half- 
blind.  They  see  but  one  thing  out  of  many,  one  side, 
one  aspect.  So  these  men  who  talked  to  me  had 
seen  the  gambling  side  of  Macao,  nothing  more. 

We  left  Canton  in  the  morning  to  take  the  river- 
ride  by  daylight,  through  vast  fields  of  rice,  a  busy 

[152] 


MACAO. 

river,  filled  with  junks,  sampans  and  steamers,  with 
innmnerable  creeks  and  water  byways  leading  off  in 
every  direction,  and  at  four  o'clock  came  in  sight  of 
the  rocky  island  of  Macao.  From  the  river  or  an 
estuary  of  the  sea — for  it  is  all  tide-water  here,  clear 
up  to  Canton — it  is  a  rocky  islet,  some  five  miles  long 
and  a  half-mile  wide.  There  are  three  high  hills, 
one  of  which  is  crowned  with  the  first  lighthouse  ever 
built  on  this  coast,  the  middle  one  with  the  old  cit- 
adel, that  in  its  day  resisted  two  attacks  from  the 
Dutch  and  many  from  pirates,  and  the  third  by  a 
magnificent  hospital,  just  below  which  stands  our 
hotel,  the  Boa  Vista.  At  first  sight  its  beauties  are 
hidden,  but  when  I  stood  on  my  veranda  at  the  Boa 
Vista,  at  the  very  extremity  of  one  horn  of  the  four- 
mile  crescent,  and  saw  at  my  feet  the  tiled  roofs  and 
many-hued  facades  of  this  old  Iberian  city,  older  than 
any  in  America,  the  crescent  sweep  of  golden  sand, 
backed  by  the  sea-wall,  the  wide  Pray  a,  the  exqui- 
site gardens,  the  noble  hills,  the  enchanting  vistas, 
the  soft  Old- World  charm  that  broods  over  it,  I  for- 
got about  the  gambling  and  what  I  came  to  see. 
Macao  the  beautiful  is  enough.  F.  says  that  only 
Naples  is   more   beautiful.    A.   says  that  it   lacks 

[1531 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

but  little  of  the  beauty  of  Nice,  and  its  situation  is 
much  like  both.  So  you  may  take  the  word  of  these 
gadabout  ladies  that  Macao  is  one  of  the  gems  of  the 
world.  Its  history  is  curious.  I  have  no  books  of 
reference  at  hand,  and  I  may  get  my  dates  mixed,  for 
I  got  most  of  it  from  the  Portuguese  manager  of  the 
hotel,  whose  English  is  as  picturesque  as  his  island. 
I  know  enough  Spanish  to  read  Portuguese  signs,  and 
I  was  reminded  of  the  story  of  the  old  lady  who  was 
bragging  of  her  son.  She  said  he  went  to  Portugal 
and  studied  Portuguese  for  three  months  and  could 
speak  it  as  well  "as  any  Portugoose  in  the  lot." 

In  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  I  think 
about  1520,  two  Portuguese  sailors  from  a  shipwrecked 
vessel  floated  to  this  island.  They  stayed  here  and 
won  the  confidence  of  the  Chinese.  Portugal  was 
then  at  the  height  of  its  power  and  brief  glory.  Its 
daring  navigators  and  hardy  sailors  were  the  first  to 
round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  open  the  first  sea 
route  to  the  Indies.  They  established  trading  sta- 
tions throughout  the  East,  at  Goa  and  elsewhere, 
and  brought  the  stuffs,  the  silks,  the  ivories,  the  spices 
and  gems  of  the  East  to  Lisbon.  The  trade  was 
enormously   remunerative.     For   nearly   a    hundred 

[154] 


MACAO. 

years  Lisbon  was  the  entrepot  of  the  Eastern  trade 
for  all  Europe.  Of  course  others  followed,  the  Dutch 
particularly;  but  Portugal  was  the  first.  She  speed- 
ily followed  the  discovery  of  these  shipwrecked  sail- 
ors. 

Macao  is  in  the  center  of  the  great  delta  of  the  Pearl 
and  West  rivers,  admirably  situated  for  trade  with 
the  great  city  of  Canton,  to  which  they  were  also  the 
first  Europeans  to  be  admitted,  and  they  very  speed- 
ily obtained  a  cession  of  the  island,  built  there  a  fair 
city,  named  it  Macao,  and  strongly  fortified  it.  Within 
thirty  years  they  had  established  factories  up  and 
down  these  rivers,  with  their  capital  at  Macao,  and 
when  Camoens  was  sent  here,  about  1560,  it  was  then 
a  considerable  town,  well  built  in  Portuguese  style, 
with  a  well-ordered  government,  a  strong  force  of 
soldiers,  and  a  gallant  and  polite  society.  Here 
Camoens  wrote  the  greater  part  of  the  Lusiad,  which 
has  been  translated  into  every  tongue,  and  remains 
the  only  important  Portuguese  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  the  world.  \Vhen  Portugal  was  absorbed 
by  Spain,  the  destructive  genius  of  Philip  Second  of 
Spain,  he  who  lost  the  Netherlands  by  his  bigotry, 
joined  to  the  power  of  the  Inquisition,  reduced  the 

[155] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Portuguese  to  impotence,  destroyed  their  energy  and 
initiative,  and  other  nations  speedily  wrung  from 
them  their  trading-posts  in  the  East.  But  through 
it  all  they  held  Macao  with  a  death-grip.  The  Dutch 
attacked  it  twice  in  the  sixteen-forties,  but  were 
beaten  off.  England  has  occupied  it  twice,  to  keep 
the  French  from  taking  it  when  Portugal  was  too 
weak  to  hold  it,  but  from  the  traditional  friendship 
between  the  two  countries  returned  it,  and  it  remains 
today  Portuguese  ruled  by  a  Portuguese  Governor, 
policed  by  Portuguese  soldiers,  their  last,  lone  out- 
post in  the  East,  the  monument  of  a  "dying  nation" 
that  bade  fair  once  to  outstrip  Spain  in  colonial  con- 
quest. 

Strange  tales  these  old  walls  could  tell  of  fierce 
conflicts,  where  the  gallant  soldiers  of  Old  Portugal 
in  morion  and  breastplate  fought  the  swarming 
Chinese  pirates,  or  stood  off  the  sturdy  Dutch.  To- 
day the  Chinese  have  reentered  and  taken  their  own. 
Portugal's  trade  is  gone.  The  Chinese  have  it  all, 
and  there  are  some  eighty  thousand  of  them  on  the 
island.  They  make  silk  and  cement  and  cigars ;  they 
gather  here  the  products  of  these  rich  valleys  in  their 
native  boats  for  the  big  world's  steamers  at  Hong 

[156] 


MACAO. 

Kong,  just  below.  They  have  everything  save  the 
nominal  lordship  of  the  island.  A  Chinese  syndicate 
has  the  gambling  concession  and  the  lottery,  the  big- 
gest in  the  East,  the  one  that  Taft  drove  out  of  Ma- 
nila. The  lottery  pays  the  Portuguese  ten  thousand 
dollars  a  month,  and  the  gambling-house  pays  a 
thousand  dollars  a  day  for  its  license,  besides  the  tax 
on  its  property.  These  sums  run  the  city — run 
it  as  no  other  city  in  the  East  is  run  except  Manila. 
It  is  beautifully  clean,  swept  and  garnished  every 
day,  well  policed,  healthy  and  salubrious.  In  fact, 
it  is  the  summer  resort  for  all  this  coast.  It  is  always 
cool  here,  even  when  it  is  sweltering  at  Hong  Kong. 
The  cool  wind  always  blows,  and  in  the  winter  fires 
are  grateful,  but  every  sort  of  tropical  vegetation 
flourishes,  and  I  have  never  seen  such  gardens.  The 
garden  of  Camoens  is  the  sweetest  spot  in  the  Orient. 
His  "grotto,"  where  he  wrote  the  Lusiad,  is  on  a  hill 
back  of  the  official  palace  of  the  Governor,  formed  by 
a  great  rock,  imposed  by  nature  upon  two  grariite 
plinths  where  the  sun  never  enters,  but  the  cool 
breeze  always  blows  from  the  sea.  Here  is  set  a 
splendid  portrait  bust  of  the  Immortal,  surrounded 
by  tributes  in  a  half-dozen  languages,  engraved  on 

[157] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

stone  tablets,  one  of  which,  by  Dr.  Bowrig,  in  English, 
heads  this  article. 

The  hilltop  has  been  landscape-gardened  till  it  is  a 
dream.  Winding  paths  beneath  the  shade  of  the 
Cathayan  tree,  the  bamboo,  the  pumeloe,  the  baobab 
and  the  banyan  turn  and  retreat,  cool  and  shaded, 
with  here  a  glimpse  of  the  sea  and  there  of  the  land  or 
the  town.  On  the  very  crest,  nature  has  made  a 
natural  platform,  from  which  you  can  see  the  whole 
island,  and  here  is  a  great  stone  summer-house,  so 
old  that  a  banyan  tree  a  hundred  feet  high  has  com- 
pletely encircled  it  with  roots,  and  even  penetrated 
every  crevice,  and  slowly  disintegrated  the  solid  stone 
and  cement.  The  banyan  is  the  most  curious  tree  in 
the  world.  It  grows  upside  down  or  any  way.  A 
little  tendril  starts  from  a  bough  far  up  the  tree. 
Apparently  it  intends  to  be  a  bough,  but  it  may  change 
its  notion,  start  downward,  and,  wrapping  around 
the  trunk  in  bewildering  convolvuli,  become  another 
root;  or  it  may  drop  straight  to  the  earth,  there  to 
strike  root  and  start  another  tree,  part  and  parcel 
of  the  parent.  So  the  aged  banyan  becomes  a  whole 
forest  in  itself.  Its  leaf  is  beautiful,  its  shade  dense, 
and  its  vagaries  unendingly  interesting. 

[158] 


MACAO. 

Long  we  lingered  in  that  enchanting  spot,  sur- 
rounded by  every  beauty  that  nature  and  art  con- 
joining can  give,  and  all  so  old  that  the  cement  walks 
are  clothed  in  long  green  moss,  the  marble  balustrades 
wrapped  and  enfolded  in  the  embrace  of  trees  that  are 
centuries  old.  A  riot  of  greenness  and  bloom  and 
fragrance,  strange  shapes  and  stranger  flowers,  a 
Mediterranean  garden  set  down  here  in  Asia. 

There  is  the  beautiful  Praya,  a  road  along  the  sea 
backed  by  houses  of  every  color  and  architecture. 
Here  it  is  Spanish  with  latticed  balconies.  There  a 
front  that  is  purely  Greek,  another  with  Moresque 
columns  and  sharply  pointed  arches.  They  are  or- 
ange and  cream  and  brown  and  green,  softened  by 
time  to  a  chromatic  harmony. 

There  are  great  public  gardens,  beautifully  kept, 
where  the  band  plays  at  six  o'clock  and  everyone  rides 
out  to  show  himself.  And  then  back  to  the  Boa 
Vista,  the  best  hotel  in  the  Orient,  built  and  run  by 
the  government,  where  we  had  the  best  meals  I  have 
tasted  since  we  left  God's  country.  It  stands  two 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  water,  with  terraced 
grounds  dropping  to  the  sea,  as  I  have  said,  at  one  horn 
of  the  island  crescent.     At  night,  when  the  town  is 

[159] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

illuminated  and  rises  in  broken  galleries,  each  with 
its  lights,  it  is  almost  unreal  in  its  beauty.  Its  only- 
fault  is  it  is  too  stagey.  You  expect  the  curtain  to 
drop  and  show  you  where  to  buy  shoes  and  where  to 
get  your  supper  when  the  show  is  over. 

Of  course  we  went  to  the  gambling-house,  which, 
as  I  have  said,  is  unique.  In  the  first  place,  it  never 
closes  its  doors.  The  game  runs  day  and  night  the 
year  round,  and  the  "chairs  never  get  cold."  It  is 
the  only  house  in  the  world  where  there  is  no  limit, 
high  or  low.  You  may  bet  five  cents  or  ten  thousand 
dollars.  Any  bet  is  accepted,  and  cashed  if  you  win. 
It  is  the  only  gambling-house  where  the  bank  has  never 
been  broken.  Somewhere  within  its  labyrinths  is 
money  enough  to  meet  any  sort  of  a  run  of  luck 
against  any  table.  There  are  eighteen  tables  in  the 
house,  all  about  alike,  and  fantan  is  the  only  game 
played;  and  by  the  way  it  is  nearer  on  the  level,  is 
the  squarest  bank  gambling-game  I  ever  heard  of. 
The  room  is  large,  with  a  long  table,  about  which  are 
seated  some  thirty  Chinese.  There  is  an  upper  gal- 
lery above  the  table  where  most  foreigners  go;  so 
that  it  is  really  two  stories.  There  are  two  croupiers 
and  a  cashier  for  each,  at  opposite  ends,  and  one  dealer. 

1160] 


MACAO. 

Surely  it  is  a  curious  sight.  As  we  seated  ourselves 
in  the  gallery  where  we  could  look  down  on  the  table, 
a  boy  handed  me  a  Manila  cigar  and  a  plate  of  water- 
melon seeds,  which  every  one  munches  as  the  play 
goes  on.  Next  to  me  sat  a  fat  Portuguese  woman, 
who  was  playing  hundred-dollar  bOls  from  a  roll  big 
enough  to  choke  a  cow,  and  winning.  Next  to  her 
was  a  Chinese  woman  with  her  two  daughters.  All 
of  them  smoked  cigarettes  constantly  and  kept  tab 
on  the  winning  numbers,  occasionally  venturing  a 
small  bet.  On  my  left  was  an  aged  Chinaman,  with 
a  keen,  aristocratic  face,  who  smoked  a  water-pipe 
and  watched  the  game,  but  was  not  playing.  Below 
were  old  men  and  young,  gray  and  bearded  merchants 
and  boys  not  out  of  their  teens,  high  castes  and  coolies 
touching  elbows  in  their  devotion  to  the  BUnd  God- 
dess. The  croupier  at  my  end  was  a  gigantic  China- 
man with  an  enormously  fat  stomach,  naked  to  the 
waist,  and  glistening  with  perspiration.  The  one  at 
the  other  end  looked  like  a  death's-head,  with  long 
fingers  like  talons.  Back  of  each  is  the  cashier,  with 
great  piles  of  silver  and  stacks  of  bank-notes,  which 
no  one  is  allowed  to  approach.  No  money  is  left  on 
the  table.    Your  money  is  tossed  to  the  cashier,  who 

[  16U 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

stacks  it  up  and  the  croupier  represents  your  bet  by 
brass  counters  placed  on  the  number  you  choose. 
Before  each  cashier  is  a  card  six  inches  square,  each 
side  of  which  represents  a  number  from  one  to  four. 
You  can  play  a  single  number;  if  you  win,  you  get 
four  to  one.  You  can  play  a  combination  of  any  two 
numbers,  and  if  one  of  them  wins  you  get  two  to  one- 
You  see  the  odds  are  exactly  even.  The  bank  gets 
eight  per  cent  out  of  every  bet;  that  is  all,  but  it  is 
enough.  That  steady  drain  of  eight  per  cent  in  the 
long  run  gets  it  all.  It  is  like  the  "kitty"  at  poker, 
which  will  in  time  absorb  all  the  chips. 

Each  player  has  before  him  a  tablet  and  pencil,  on 
which  he  records  the  fall  of  the  numbers,  and  each 
apparently  tries  to  play  a  "system"  of  his  own.  You 
hand  your  money  to  the  boy,  "one  dollar  on  the  two 
and  four."  He  throws  it  into  a  basket  hung  from  a 
string,  and  with  a  dexterous  flirt  drops  it  before  the 
cashier  and  sing-songs  in  Chinese  your  numbers. 
The  croupier,  apparently  without  looking  at  it,  throws 
it  to  the  cashier  and  drops  brass  counters  on  the  num- 
bers. When  the  bets  are  numerous,  he  spreads  out 
little  short  slips  of  ivory,  with  your  bet  on  the  proper 
numbers.    Sometimes  the  brass  counters  cover  a  space 

[162] 


MACAO. 

two  feet  square.  There  are  twenty  or  thirty  bets  be- 
fore him,  but  he  never  makes  a  mistake.  There  is 
never  a  dispute.  His  big  fat  fingers  seem  to  have  an 
intelligence  of  their  own.  He  picks  up  a  stack  of 
brass  counters,  running  his  finger  down  the  stack  with- 
out counting,  and  sets  the  exact  number  down. 
Finally  the  bets  are  made.  The  dealer  picks  up  a 
handful  of  brass  discs,  each  with  a  hole  in  it,  and 
throws  them  on  the  table,  fifty  or  sixty,  covers  them 
for  a  moment  with  a  brass  cup,  and  then  with  a  pointed 
stick  begins  to  draw  them  out,  four  at  a  time.  He 
separates  four  from  the  pile,  with  a  swift  certain 
movement  spreads  them  so  that  everyone  can  see 
that  he  has  drawn  out  just  four,  no  more  or  less. 
Again  he  draws  out  four,  until  only  four  or  less  are 
left  in  the  pile  and  the  number  left  represents  the  win- 
ning number.  If  four  remain,  four  wins.  If  you 
have  bet  on  the  four  you  get  four  times  your  bet, 
less  eight  per  cent;  if  you  have  bet  on  the  two  and 
four  you  get  double,  less  the  bank's  eight  per  cent. 
But  the  marvel  of  it  is  when  the  settlement  is  made. 
The  cashier  tosses  out  the  cash  for  each  bet,  with 
lightning  rapidity  and  absolute  certainty,  computing 
and  deducting  the  bank's  percentage  from  thirty  dif- 

[163] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

ferent  bets,  ranging  from  ten  cents  to  a  hundred  dol- 
lars, the  croupier  verifies  the  amount,  apparently 
with  his  fingers.  In  a  moment  the  table  is  cleared, 
everyone  paid,  and  the  game  begins  over  again.  So 
there  is  the  game  of  fantan,  the  simplest,  squarest 
gambling-game  ever  invented.  There  is  no  chance 
for  anything  but  a  square  deal,  no  dealing-box  or 
hold-out  or  crooked  roulette  wheel.  Its  fairness 
appeals  to  everyone,  and  people  come  here  from  all 
over  the  East  to  gamble,  as  they  go  to  Monte  Carlo. 
English  and  Americans  from  Hong  Kong  run  over 
and  spend  Sunday,  ostensibly  for  a  rest  and  to  cool 
off  in  this  delicious  air,  but  they  sit  up  all  night  and 
day  to  play  the  game.  We  saw  them  coming  in  rick- 
shaws to  catch  the  five  o'clock  boat,  having  sat  in 
the  game  till  the  last  minute.  Four  friends  of  mine 
came  over  Saturday  night,  and  I  figured  out  that  be- 
tween them  they  dropped  about  five  hundred  dollars 
Mexican.  But  in  the  main  it  is  the  Chinese  who 
support  the  game.  They  are  said  to  be  the  most 
desperate  gamblers  in  the  world.  They  gamble  away 
all  they  have,  and  finally  sell  themselves  into  slavery 
to  pay  their  gambling  debts.  They  gamble  away 
their  wives  and  children,  but  the  Romans  used  to  do 

[164] 


MACAO. 

that,  and  I  think  the  American  Indian  is  about  as 
bad.  That  reminds  me :  I  used  to  know  an  Indian, 
Jim  Buttermilk,  who  lost  his  squaw  in  a  curious  way. 
He  was  playing  poker  with  another  Indian,  and  was 
about  broke.  Finally  he  picked  up  a  big  hand  and 
bet  his  squaw  on  it  before  the  draw.  The  other  In- 
dian promptly  saw  his  bet  and  raised  him  two  squaws. 
Jim  had  only  one  squaw  and  couldn't  call  the  bet. 
Had  to  lay  down  his  hand. 

Coming  over  on  the  ship  the  Chinese  in  the  steerage 
were  gambling  all  the  time,  with  cards,  dominoes, 
dice,  and  curious  little  black  and  white  beans.  I  saw 
a  punkah  boy  in  Hong  Kong  puUing  the  string  that 
sways  the  punkah  fan  with  one  hand,  and  gambling 
with  three  other  boys  with  the  other.  None  of  them 
were  over  ten  years  old. 

But  after  all,  gambling  is  imiversal;  every  race, 
white,  red,  brown,  and  yellow,  gambles  and  has  gam- 
bled from  the  beginning  of  time  with  every  sort  of  an 
implement  and  on  every  sort  of  a  chance.  Everyone 
remembers  how  the  Prince  of  Wales,  afterwards 
George  the  Fourth,  lost  eighteen  thousand  guineas 
on  a  ten-mile  race  between  a  flock  of  turkeys  and  a 
flock  of  geese.    The  Prince  backed  the  turkeys,  each 

[165] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

to  drive  his  own  birds.  His  opponent  put  up  a  brace 
game  on  the  Prince.  He  selected  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  for  the  start.  The  turkeys  romped  away 
from  the  geese,  but  when  sundown  came  the  turkeys 
went  to  roost  and  no  amount  of  poking  could  get 
them  down.  The  geese,  who  sit  up  all  night,  kept  on 
and  won. 

Billy  S.  tells  of  a  friend  of  his  who  came  out  West 
and  lost  seven  thousand  dollars  playing  croquet.  I 
do  not  vouch  for  the  truthfulness  of  the  story  or  of 
the  author.  In  fact,  I  think  it  improbable,  but  not 
at  all  impossible.  For  there  is  the  school-teacher  in 
Alton  who  lost  twelve  thousand  dollars  playing  slot 
machines,  and  had  to  go  to  the  poorhouse.  The 
Associated  Press  sent  this  out,  and  the  A.  P.  always 
tells  the  truth,  except  when  it  reports  Roosevelt. 
This  story  sounds  improbable.  In  the  first  place, 
how  would  a  school-teacher  get  twelve  thousand  dol- 
lars unless  he  broke  into  a  bank?  And  again,  if  he 
had  twelve  thousand  dollars,  why  would  he  teach 
school  ?  He  would  be  like  the  Tennessee  mountaineer 
who  conceived  the  idea  of  buying  a  sawmill  to  cut  up 
his  timber.  He  wrote  for  prices,  and  the  firm  offered 
him  a  first-class  sawmill  for  four  thousand  dollars 

[166] 


MACAO. 

cash.  He  wrote  back:  ''Mister,  if  I  had  four  thou- 
sand dollars  cash,  what  in  the  name  of  God  would  I 
want  of  a  sawmill?" 

The  element  of  time  might  at  first  preclude  belief 
in  this  story,  but  here  is  a  fact  that  I  know  myself. 
Every  one  in  Avalon,  Catalina  Island,  knows  "Uncle 
John."  He  has  money  to  burn,  and  his  favorite  way 
of  burning  it  is  on  slot  machines, — not  for  money,  but 
drinks.  A  certain  saloon  in  San  Francisco,  which  I 
shall  not  name,  because  I  am  not  paid  to  advertise 
it,  has  framed  and  hanging  on  its  wall  a  written 
signed  and  sealed  acknowledgment  that  it  owes  Uncle 
John  sixty  thousand  seven  hundred  and  some  odd 
drinks,  won  out  of  its  slot  machines.  Uncle  John 
doesn't  care  for  the  drinks;  his  friends  are  slowly 
but  surely  working  out  the  debt,  but  he  just  likes  the 
game. 

So  the  school-teacher  story  may  be  true. 

Buck  O'Neill,  of  Arizona,  once  bet  his  amethyst 
mine  against  a  Prescott  hotel  on  the  Corbett  and 
Sullivan  fight,  and  won,  but  the  hotel  people  welshed, 
and  refused  to  pay. 

Two  friends  of  mine  were  in  Chicago  once,  both 
devotees  of  the  National  Game.    They  went  to  the 

[167] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

theatre,  and  one  of  them  picked  up  a  dollar  bill  that 
some  one  had  dropped.  When  they  went  out  they 
stopped  in  for  a  drink.  The  man  with  the  dollar  bill 
handed  it  to  the  barkeeper,  and  when  he  got  to  the 
door  found  he  had  four  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents 
in  change.  The  barkeeper  had  mistaken  it  for  a  five. 
They  decided  that  they  were  ahead  of  a  bar  for  once, 
and  they  would  stay  so.  On  the  street  they  decided 
that  it  was  "lucky  money,"  and  went  to  a  faro  bank 
to  try  it.  They  won  forty-four  dollars  with  it,  and 
quit.  Then  one  of  them,  who  was  a  horseman,  de- 
cided that  it  was  still  "lucky  money,"  and  that  they 
would  go  to  the  old  Garfield  race-track,  then  nm  by 
Corrigan,  and  chance  the  whole  of  it  on  the  longest 
shot  they  could  find.  They  went  out  and  there  was 
Bucephalus,  we  will  call  him,  odds  fifty  to  one.  They 
decided  to  put  their  money  on  him.  Just  then  a  race- 
horse man  who  knew  them  came  along  and  talked 
them  out  of  it.  He  convinced  them,  that  B.  couldn't 
win  unless  all  the  other  horses  dropped  dead,  and 
so  they  finally  put  their  money  on  the  favorite.  Be- 
hold!— there  was  a  bruising  start.  The  horses  were 
half  an  hour  at  the  post.  The  thoroughbreds  wore 
themselves  out  scoring,  and  the  plug  romped  home 

[168] 


MACAO. 

with  the  money.  If  they  had  stayed  by  their  luck 
that  casual  dollar  bill  would  have  converted  itself 
into  twenty-two  hundred  dollars  in  twenty-four  hours. 
No  wonder  those  who  fool  with  games  of  chance  are 
superstitious. 

The  lottery  here  is  the  biggest  thing  in  the  East. 
It  pays  a  capital  prize  of  twenty  thousand  pesos,  ten 
thousand  dollars  gold,  is  drawn  every  month,  and  its 
tickets  are  sold  all  over  Asia.  It  flourished  first  in 
Manila,  and  when  Taft  drove  it  out  of  there,  it  re- 
moved to  Macao,  where  the  Portuguese  will  let  any- 
thing in  that  has  the  price.  I  should  judge  that  this 
is  a  real  "wide-open  town."  But  the  proprietors  of 
the  gambling-house,  who  pay  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year  gold,  insist  on  a 
monopoly.  No  one  else  can  skin  suckers  but  they, 
the  duly  licensed.  You  wonder  where  the  money 
comes  from,  and  what  the  total  business  must  amount 
to  when  eight  per  cent  pays  this  enormous  tax  and 
big  dividends. 

I  lost  one  dollar  and  eighty  cents  Mex.  just  to  pay 
for  my  entertainment.  I  never  thought  I  could  beat 
the  other  fellow  at  his  own  game.     It  is  curious  that 

[169] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

none  of  these  foreign  games  have  ever  taken  root  in 
America.  Nothing  flourishes  there  for  any  length  of 
time  but  the  native  game  of  draw  poker,  probably 
because  it  requires  more  sense  to  play  it  than  any 
other.  Any  fool  can  play  baccarat,  rouge  et  noir, 
roulette,  or  any  of  these  foreign  games,  but  it  takes 
a  knowledge  of  human  nature,  nerve  and  skill  to  play 
the  National  Game.  It  has  gone  everywhere,  and  I 
find  that  it  is  everywhere  considered  the  king  of  games. 
The  high-class  Chinese  play  it,  and  play  it  well.  The 
English  try  it,  but  none  of  them  play  well. 

Speaking  of  poker,  a  friend  of  mine  has  a  curious 
theory  of  economics.  Many  political  economists 
claim  that  the  measure  of  prosperity  in  our  country 
is  the  price  of  pig-iron.  When  pig-iron  is  high,  times 
are  good,  and  vice  versa.  Others  say  it  is  the  price  of 
wheat.  The  Bryan  school  used  to  say  it  was  the 
price  of  silver;  that  if  we  wanted  to  make  times  good, 
all  we  had  to  do  was  to  boost  the  price  of  silver  by 
Free  Coinage  at  the  Heaven-Born  ratio.  My  friend 
claims  they  are  all  wrong.  Says  he:  "  The  true  meas- 
ure of  prosperity  is  the  price  of  a  white  chip  in  the 
poker  game."  "Now,"  he  says,  "I  remember  along 
in  1890  when  Benjamin  Harrison  of  blessed  memory 

[170] 


MACAO. 

was  President,  the  price  of  a  white  chip  at  the  Cope- 
land  Hotel  was  twenty-five  cents,  and  a  good  demand. 
Everyone  was  busy,  times  were  good,  labor  employed, 
factories  nmning;  in  short.  Prosperity  with  a  capital 
P.  Then  we  got  to  running  off  after  false  gods.  We 
elected  Grover  Cleveland  President.  The  country 
went  to  the  bowwows,  till  after  four  years  of  the 
Stuffed  Prophet  a  white  chip  in  Topeka  was  worth 
only  five  cents  and  few  takers, — practically  no  de- 
mand. The  white  chip  rose  and  fell  with  the  coim- 
try's  business,  or  rather  the  business  rose  and  fell 
with  the  white  chip.  Now,"  says  he,  "look  at  it. 
This  past  winter  in  Topeka  a  white  chip  was  worth 
from  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar,  with  a  good  demand, 
and  the  market  closed  strong,  say  about  March  15th, 
with  every  prospect  of  a  good  demand  and  higher 
prices." 

There  may  be  something  in  my  friend's  theory; 
we  may  yet  live  to  see  Dun  and  Henry  Clews  publish- 
ing tables  from  the  various  cities  of  the  United  States, 
showing  the  ruling  prices  for  white  chips  instead  of  the 
present  deceptive  "price  units." 

Macao  is  a  lovely  place,  fair  and  sweet  and  clean, 
entrancing  but  for  this  Devil  of  Gaming.     In  the 

[171] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

hands  of  the  Enghsh  or  the  Chinese  it  would  be 
stopped,  but  Portugal  is  too  poor  to  foot  the  bills; 
she  has  lost  her  grip.  With  a  certain  measure  of 
pride  in  her  past  glory  she  still  clings  to  Macao  with 
its  romantic  history,  and  makes  of  it  a  plague-spot, 
a  snare  and  a  pitfall  for  all  the  fools  in  the  East.  It 
should  be  the  summer  resort  of  this  coast;  with  its 
fine  hotels,  its  splendid  climate,  its  beauty  and  bloom 
and  fragrance  and  charm,  it  should  draw  the  best  from 
Singapore  to  Vladivostok,  instead  of  which,  it  draws 
the  worst.  It  preys  upon  all  classes,  sucks  the  blood 
of  the  rickshaw  cooly  indifTerently  with  that  of  the 
rich  and  high-placed.  It  battens  on  vice  and  ruins 
its  votaries,  yet  sits  in  beauty  and  smiles  across  the 
summer  seas  a  true  siren  to  lure  men  to  disaster. 

Our  time  is  up.  The  "Nippon"  is  loosening  from 
her  buoy.  Our  Hong  Kong  friends  are  there  to  bid 
us  good-by  and  drink  a  stirrup-cup,  and  we  are  off 
once  more.  The  ship  somehow  seems  lonely.  Ah 
Wing,  our  dear,  faithful  Ah  Wing,  quit  the  ship  at 
Hong  Kong,  and  we  have  a  new  cabin-boy,  but  we 
miss  that  China  boy  sorely.  The  English  Colonel  has 
gone  southward  to   his   fever-ridden   camp  in  the 

[172] 


MACAO. 

swamps  of  Rangoon.  Dr.  Strong  and  his  wife  have 
gone  on  their  long  trip  on  the  Roon  to  Berlin,  where 
he  is  a  delegate  to  the  great  International  Congress  of 
Medicine, — a  worthy  delegate,  I  assure  you,  for  that 
new  colony  of  Manila  to  send.  The  worst  of  this  trip 
is  the  partings.  We  have  made  so  many  dear  friends 
on  the  trip,  made  them  only  to  lose  them,  to  meet 
and  part,  friends  we  would  like  to  live  and  die  with. 
I  shall  be  glad,  how  glad,  to  see  the  old  ones  again, 
for  after  all  they  are  best.  We  have  reached  the  limit 
of  our  journey.  From  here  we  shall  be  moving  to- 
ward home,  a  little  nearer  every  day;  it  sounds  good. 


[173] 


SHANGHAI. 

This  is  the  Paris  of  the  Orient.  It  is  the  largest 
foreign  settlement  on  the  coast,  the  best  built,  has 
the  best  shops,  and  is  the  center  of  a  vast  trade.  It 
lies  on  the  'WTiangpoo,  a  creek  that  flows  into  the 
Yangste  twelve  miles  below,  and  thirty  miles  from 
the  ocean.  I  call  the  "\^'^langpoo  a  creek,  but  it  car- 
ries the  deepest  ships  that  float,  and  has  a  land- 
locked harbor  twelve  miles  in  length. 

It  is  a  "Settlement."  That  is  to  say,  it  is  owned 
by  China,  not  by  any  foreign  power ;  titles  come  from 
the  Chinese,  but  it  is  governed  by  the  foreigners  them- 
selves. Twice  England  had  a  chance  to  have  secured 
absolute  title  to  it,  but  let  the  chance  slip.  England 
owTis  Hong  Kong ;  here  she  is  only  a  settler,  along  with 
Germany,  France,  and  America.  Each  has  its  con- 
sular court,  and  in  addition  both  the  American  and 
British  have  regular  courts  and  judges,  the  process 
running  in  the  names  of  the  respective  countries, 
and  ours  is  known  as  the  United  States  Court  for  the 
District  of  China.     Controversies  between  Americans, 

[174] 


CHEAP   PIETY. 


SHANGHAI. 


or  Americans  and  Chinese,  are  settled  in  our  court. 
It  has  many  manufacturing  interests,  among  them 
the  largest  flouring-mill  in  the  East,  and  has  an  im- 
mense foreign  trade.  This  morning's  shipping  news 
shows  fifty-one  ocean-going  steamships  in  harbor,  of 
which,  by  the  way,  twenty-eight  are  British,  Brit- 
ain has  not  lost  her  ownership  of  the  sea  yet,  though 
the  Germans  are  making  terrific  inroads  on  her.  You 
may  take  ship  here  direct  for  New  York,  for  all  the 
South-American  ports,  including  Buenos  Ayres,  for 
Genoa,  Marseilles  and  London,  for  Manila  and  Aus- 
tralia,— in  fact,  to  nearly  every  deep-water  port  in 
the  world.  It  has  two  English  newspapers — papers, 
let  me  say,  not  newspapers;  I  cannot  grant  the  title 
of  newspaper  to  any  English  publication.  I  believe 
that  if  an  Englishman  were  to  open  his  morning 
paper  and  find  anything  less  than  three  days  old,  the 
shock  would  be  fatal. 

Your  Englishman  likes  his  news  like  his  game,  a 
httle  bit  ''high,"  a  trifle  tender  and  smelly  under  the 
wing.  For  instance,  take  a  paper  like  the  London 
Times.  There  is  a  change  determined  on  in  the  Min- 
istry; some  one  is  going  out,  some  one  coming  in. 
The  Times  will  announce  in  a  guarded  way,  that  such 

[175] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

a  change  is  impending,  "a-namin'  no  names."  The 
next  day  it  will  state  "on  the  highest  authority" 
that  the  change  is  not  to  be  in  the  office  of  Home  Sec- 
retary. The  next  day  it  will  state  "from  a  source 
that  cannot  be  questioned"  that  the  change  is  not 
to  be  in  the  office  of  Foreign  Minister.  So  by  a  pro- 
cess of  elimination  it  will  lead  up  to  the  fact,  break 
the  news  gently,  and  finally,  after  its  readers  are 
fully  prepared,  after  every  one  knows  all  about  it  by 
word  of  mouth,  it  will  tell  the  fact  and  the  Horrible 
Truth  will  be  revealed:  likely  Second  Assistant 
Private  Secretary  to  the  Under  Secretary  of  the 
Board  of  Trade,  or  something  equally  as  important. 
So  an  English  daily  is  a  series  of  essays,  a  weekly 
paper  issued  in  daily  installments.  English  papers 
out  here  are  no  exception  to  the  rule.  But  they 
ought  to  be  gold  mines,  for  they  are  nine-tenths  ad- 
vertising. If  they  get  anything  for  the  ads.,  life 
ought  to  be  one  Long  Crimson  Sunset. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  North  China  News,  one  of 
the  most  important  and  influential  papers  in  the  East. 
It  is  a  twelve-page,  seven-column  paper.  The  first 
page  is  wholly  ads. ;  so  is  the  second,  the  third,  the 
fourth,  and  the  fifth.     Not  a  line  of  reading  matter 

[176] 


SHANGHAI. 


on  any  of  them.  Finally,  on  the  sixth  page,  at  the 
bottom  of  the  last  column,  you  strike  a  "leader." 
A  heavy,  solid  editorial,  finely  written,  on  some  cur- 
rent topic,  that  rims  over  onto  the  seventh  page  and 
takes  up  about  two  columns.  Just  one — no  editorial 
paragraphs  at  all.  On  the  seventh  page  is  one  brief 
column  of  cable  news,  mostly  unimportant,  another 
of  Native  Affairs,  one  of  Notes  and  Comment,  clipped, 
and  two  or  three  columns  of  correspondence,  i.  e., 
communications, — for  the  True  Briton  has  a  heaven- 
bom  right  to  exploit  his  grievances  in  the  public 
prints.  Then  there  is  a  lot  of  dull  stuff  from  the 
courts.  They  print  the  most  unimportant  law  suits 
with  a  wealth  of  detail  that  would  put  the  New  York 
papers  on  the  Thaw  trial  far  in  the  rear.  They  tell 
all  the  judges  say,  and  the  witnesses,  and  the  law- 
yers, and  the  full  text  of  the  judgment.  It  saves 
brain-fag  for  the  editor.  And  finally  on  the  ninth 
page  will  be  another  essay,  clipped  from  some  Eng- 
lish weekly  paper,  some  two  months  old.  Some- 
times there  is  a  column  of  clippings  from  American 
newspapers.  Altogether  there  are,  out  of  the  eighty- 
four  columns,  just  thirteen  of  "pure  reading  matter," 
of  which  only  two  columns  can  be  classed  as  news.    I 

[177] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

could  run  that  daily  with  one  hand,  and  without  any 
assistants  whatever.  The  advertisers  don't  seem  to 
care  about  being  "positioned."  Very  few  of  them 
are  next  to  "poor  reading  matter."  (That  was  a  slip, 
but  let  it  go  that  way, — it  is  poorer  than  it  is  pure.) 
Their  ads.  are  all  lumped  together  anyhow,  jumbled, 
not  classified,  and  the  worst  written  ads.  ever.  No 
attempt  to  attract  attention  or  boost  their  goods. 
"Messrs.  So-and-So  beg  to  announce  that  they  have 
just  received  a  consignment  of  Blank's  Baby  Food." 
That's  all.  They  remind  one  of  the  small  boy  whose 
father  sent  him  down  town  to  sell  a  bag  of  sweet 
com.  He  came  home  with  the  com  unsold.  His 
father  asked  him  why  he  did  not  sell  it.  "Darned 
if  I  know,"  said  the  boy ;  "two  or  three  people  asked 
me  what  I  had  in  my  bag,  and  I  told  them  it  was  none 
of  their  business."  Their  goods  are  there,  you  ought 
to  know  it,  and  they  wait  on  you  as  though  they  were 
doing  you  the  greatest  favor  in  permitting  you  to  buy 
any  of  their  justly  celebrated  stuff.  We  wouldn't 
call  it  advertising  at  home,  but  it  goes  out  there. 

By  the  way,  speaking  of  newspapers,  Manila  has 
two,  or  rather  three — ^two  evening  and  one  morning. 
The  American  is  morning,  the  Times  and  Cable  even- 

[178] 


SHANGHAI. 


ing.  The  American  and  Times  are  owned  by  the 
Speyers,  who  built  the  street  railway  in  Manila  and 
are  trying  with  considerable  success  to  get  a  first 
mortgage  on  the  Islands.  The  Cable  News  is  owned 
by  its  editor,  who  is  the  Bill  White  of  the  Philippines. 
He  is  always  raising  hell  about  something,  and  with 
considerable  success.  People  out  there  seem  to  rely 
on  it  more  than  the  corporation-owned  American 
and  Times.  While  I  was  there  they  were  bluffing 
each  other  over  which  paid  the  most  cable  tolls  for 
foreign  news.  Offering  to  put  up  one  hundred  pesos 
to  back  their  claims,  all  of  which  sounded  very  fa- 
miliar; but  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  could  pay  the 
monthly  cable  tolls  of  both  of  them  without  strain- 
ing my  letter  of  credit  much.  Most  of  their  cables 
are  faked,  guesses  that  have  to  be  denied  later. 

There  are  two  Shanghais.  Old  Shanghai,  an  an- 
cient walled  city,  native,  pure  and  simple,  that  is  a 
thousand  years  old ;  and  there  is  what  we  think  of  as 
Shanghai,  which  consists  of  the  various  foreign  set- 
tlements. The  former  was  held  by  the  Taiping 
rebels  in  1860  for  nearly  a  year,  but  they  were  wise 
enough  not  to  disturb  the  foreigners,  and  it  is  much 

[179] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

like  Canton.  We  spent  a  forenoon  there,  saw  the 
sights,  smelled  the  smells,  and  as  before,  I  was  sick 
for  a  day;  couldn't  eat  anything  that  did  not  taste 
Chinesey.  Curious  how  that  smell  gets  into  me.  My 
very  clothes  seem  to  breathe  of  it.  I  have  to  come 
home,  take  a  hot  bath,  and  change  everything.  I 
like  the  Chinese  individually,  but  in  the  mass,  in  their 
own  environment,  I  had  rather  meet  a  family  of  pole- 
cats. However,  we  did  our  duty;  F.  looks  after 
that.  If  I  overlook  a  bet  on  the  table  in  this  matter 
of  sight-seeing  it  will  not  be  her  fault.  It  is  queer,  a 
little  fragile  woman  that  can't  sweep  a  floor  without 
breaking  down  will  take  a  big  husky  man  and  wear 
him  to  a  frazzle  when  it  comes  to  "seeing  things." 

F.  has  priced  everything  in  China  so  far,  and  if  she 
thought  she  had  overlooked  a  piece  of  jade  or  a  dress 
pattern  she  would  start  over  again.  Every  morning 
when  I  am  figuring  on  having  a  nice  quiet  forenoon 
to  sit  down  and  talk  to  "Gentle  Reader,"  I  am  re- 
minded of  something  we  have  not  seen.  It  is  exactly 
like  four  million  other  things  we  have  seen,  but  it 
must  be  viewed  just  the  same. 

One  thing  I  did  get  in  Shanghai :  I  was  prayed  for. 
It  cost  me  twenty  cents  Mex.,  and  the  High  Grand 

[180] 


SHANGHAI. 


burned  a  bunch  of  sampans  made  out  of  silver  tissue 
paper  and  kowtowed  before  an  extremely  ugly  god,  I 
think  the  ugliest  one  in  the  bunch.  I  wonder  if  that 
was  a  compliment  to  my  appearance?  I  did  not  want 
to,  but  F.  said  it  was  the  thing  to  do ;  it  might  bring 
me  luck ;  the  guide  said  it  would.  You  can't  afford 
to  overlook  the  chance  of  getting  luck  for  ten  cents. 
F.'s  religion  is  taken  from  her  environment.  In 
Rome  she  had  the  Pope  bless  a  rosary,  and  she  treas- 
ures it  devoutly.  Out  here  she  never  overlooks  a 
temple  or  joss-house  if  she  knows  it.  In  Japan  she  is 
Shinto,  in  France  Catholic,  in  England  Established 
Church.  Somewhere  out  of  the  bunch  she  ought  to 
get  a  Hereafter  ticket  that  is  properly  punched. 

But  old  Shanghai  is  Canton  in  little.  Streets  three 
to  four  feet  wide,  tiny  shops,  everyone  working  at 
some  trade,  and  everything  massed  by  occupations. 
The  fan-makers  are  here,  the  jewelers  all  together 
yonder,  furniture-makers  in  another  place.  It  is 
not  so  bad  till  you  strike  the  streets  where  they  pre- 
pare and  vend  the  food;  then,  Heaven  help  you! 
The  same  innumerable  population  massed  and 
crowded.  I  have  tried  to  account  for  this  terrific  con- 
gestion in  the  China  cities.    Originally  it  was  probably 


[181] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

to  escape  robbers  and  pirates  that  infested  the  open 
country,  but  it  is  mainly  the  enormous  price  of  ground 
rent.  As  in  all  old  congested  countries,  and  this  is  the 
oldest  and  most  congested,  land  is  almost  unpurchas- 
able.  Streets  and  wide  spaces,  public  gardens  and 
breathing-places  cost  too  much.  Rents  are  enor- 
mous, and  must  be  subdivided  to  the  last  limit,  by  pil- 
ing up. 

So,  as  I  have  said,  you  have  never  seen  China  Town 
in  America,  because  there  they  move  into  streets  that 
we  have  laid  out,  houses  we  have  built.  You  don't 
get  the  Chinese  atmosphere.  That  escapes,  while 
here  it  is  carefully  retained  so  that  you  get  all  of  it, 
mostly  through  the  olfactories.  The  foreign  part  of 
Shanghai  is  beautiful.  It  flows  down  both  sides  of 
the  Whangpoo,  which  is  crossed  by  numerous  bridges, 
splendidly  built,  with  structures  that  would  be  a 
credit  to  any  city  in  the  world. 

Here  we  struck  friends.  F.'s  sister  has  been  out 
here  for  sixteen  years  and  her  husband  has  been  here 
twenty-eight  years,  one  of  the  oldest  residents  among 
the  foreigners.  I  find  that  the  longer  foreigners  have 
lived  here  the  more  pro-Chinese  they  are.  They 
seem  to  stand  acquaintance.    Our  people  get  used 

[182] 


SHANGHAI. 


to  them,  like  their  ways,  swear  by  them.  The  Doc- 
tor has  a  Number  One  Boy  that  has  been  with  him 
for  twelve  years,  who  runs  the  whole  house.  By  the 
way,  there  are  no  head  waiters  in  this  country. 
Everything  goes  by  number.  Number  One  Boy 
runs  the  dining-room.  There  is  Number  One  Hall 
boy,  porter,  and  so  on.  They  even  carry  it  into 
business.  I  heard  one  man  speak  of  another  as  hav- 
ing been  his  Number  Two  for  three  years.  Those 
who  have  been  here  long  insensibly  fall  into  "pidgin." 
They  all  use  it.  For  instance,  I  heard  one  English- 
man ask  another,  "What  fashion  pidgin  b'long  that 
chop  dollar  face  man?"  That  sentence  requires 
rather  a  long  explanation.  "Pidgin"  is  as  near 
"business"  as  the  Chino  can  pronounce  it.  When 
the  foreigners  came  here,  they  were  not  allowed  to 
land ;  they  dealt  over  the  side  of  the  ship.  The  for- 
eigner could  not  learn  Chinese,  and  the  Chinese  showed 
their  adaptability  by  inventing  Pidgin  Enghsh;  that 
is.  Business  English.  It  is  the  Lingua  Franca,  the 
Esperanto  of  the  coast,  and  all  nationalities  use  it  in 
business.  "Chop"  is  trade-mark,  seal,  or  stamp. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  trouble  with  Chinese  coinage. 
A  smart  viceroy  finds  his  profit  in  setting  up  a  mint 

[183] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

and  debasing  the  coinage,  and  no  one  will  take  a 
silver  dollar  unless  it  has  the  "chop"  of  some  reliable 
house  on  it  to  show  that  it  is  full  weight.  They  for- 
merly used  a  steel  punch,  and  when  a  house  handed 
you  out  a  dollar  in  change  it  was  punched  with  their 
"chop"  to  show  that  they  guaranteed  it  to  be  good. 
Some  of  the  old  Hong  Kong  dollars  were  hammered 
all  out  of  shape.  They  were  "chop  dollars."  A  man 
with  pockmarks  on  his  face  is  a  "chop  dollar  face 
man."  Now  they  use  a  stamp  and  indelible  ink. 
When  it  wears  a  little  or  is  indistinguishable  you 
demand  a  fresh  chop  on  it.  "What  fashion  pidgin" 
is  what  kind  of  business.  Everything  is  "piece." 
"My  wantchee  one  piece  glass."  You  never  say 
here  or  there.  You  say  "My  wantchee  you  this 
side."  "Topside"  and  "bottomside"  are  upstairs 
and  down.  The  servant  came  to  the  Doctor  at  lunch. 
"Master  hab  got  two  piece  men  bottom  side."  Two 
visitors  downstairs. 

Anything  to  eat  is  "chow."  "Chopchop"  is 
quickly,  hurry.  There  is  nothing  like  it  except  rail- 
road slang  in  America.  Coming  out,  I  was  reading 
the  verbatim  account  of  the  evidence  of  a  Santa  Fe 
brakeman  who  was  called  on  the  carpet  to  explain 

[184] 


SHANGHAI. 


the  circumstances  of  a  rear-end  collision.  Here  is 
what  he  told  the  "Super.":  "You  see  it  was  this 
way :  The  hoghead  was  down  greasin'  the  pig.  The 
tallow-pot  was  in  the  coal  mine  crackin'  diamonds. 
The  Head  shack  was  out  front  bending  the  rails  to 
head  in.  The  Con.  was  back  in  the  dog-house  tossin' 
the  tissues,  and  I  was  just  starting  out  with  the  red 
when  she  bumped  us." 

If  you  can't  translate  that,  maybe  Jim  Hurley  will 
volunteer  an  explanation.  He  and  Jerry  Black  talk 
that  kind  of  language  all  the  time.  It  is  astonishing 
how  few  words  you  can  get  along  with.  There  are 
not  to  exceed  one  hundred  and  fifty  words  of  "  pidgin," 
but  they  suffice.  If  you  know  them  you  can  do  busi- 
ness all  over  the  East.  Mark  you,  it  is  "pidgin  Eng- 
lish," not  pidgin  German  or  anything  else.  EngUsh 
is  the  tongue  out  here,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
Germans  are  everywhere,  patient,  aggressive,  work- 
ing tooth  and  nail  for  the  trade  and  getting  it.  They 
have  beaten  us,  they  are  beating  the  English,  but  to 
work  here  they  must  speak  English.  There  are  Chino- 
English  schools  in  every  coast  town.  Everywhere 
you  meet  Chinese  who  speak  English,  even  in  Canton. 
Many  have  learned  it  in  America  or  Australia,  but 

[185] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

most  in  these  schools.  In  the  Camoen  Garden  at 
Macao  we  met  a  charming  Chinese  family,  the  grand- 
father and  grandmother,  the  married  daughter,  and 
four  children — three  handsome  boys  and  a  little 
girl  that  set  F.  crazy,  she  was  so  pretty  and  sweet. 
All  of  them  except  the  old  man  spoke  English,  the 
boys  fluently.  A  knowledge  of  English  insures  a 
good  job  in  a  store  or  bank,  an  ultimate  partnership. 
It  is  the  language  of  the  Coast. 

I  shall  not  try  to  tell  you  much  about  the  Chinese 
language,  although  I  know  all  about  it — ^nit.  No 
one  knows  anything  about  Chinese  except  a  few 
scholars  who  have  put  in  their  lives  on  it.  Their 
writing  is  ideographic ;  go  to  the  dictionary  for  that. 
They  have  one  dialect,  called  the  Mandarin  or  offi- 
cial tongue,  spoken  by  most  of  the  educated  classes, 
and  there  is  another  dialect  for  nearly  every  province. 
Lack  of  intercommunication  has  led  to  dialectism, 
as  it  does  everywhere,  as  it  did  in  England  and  France 
two  hundred  years  ago,  and  even  in  America.  A 
Canton  Chino  cannot  understand  a  Shanghai.  Doc- 
tor San,  our  pet  name  for  the  ship's  doctor,  can  reel 
off  a  jargon  with  no  sense  in  it  that  sounds  exactly 
like  some  sort  of  Chinese.    I  saw  him  go  up  to  a  Hong 

[186] 


SHANGHAI. 


Kong  Chinaman  and  rattle  it  off.  The  boy  listened 
attentively,  and  finally  said,  "My  no  sabbe  Shang- 
hai," and  walked  off.  He  thought  the  doctor  was 
talking  the  northern  dialect. 

Men  who  come  out  here  get  completely  weaned 
from  home.  They  get  fits  of  homesickness  and  go 
back,  but  they  almost  invariably  return.  Kipling 
says:  "When  you  'ear  the  East  a-callin'  you  won't 
never  'eed  naught  else."  It  is  so.  Somehow  it 
draws  men  back.  Those  who  stay  here  any  length 
of  time  become  expatriates.  They  are  loyal  to  their 
country,  they  celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July,  the  Fall 
of  the  Bastille,  or  the  King's  birthday,  they  sing  Die 
Wacht  am  Rhein,  the  Marseillaise,  or  the  Star- 
Spangled  Banner,  when  they  get  full,  but  they  stay 
here. 

For  one  thing,  they  are  waited  on  hand  and  foot  for 
a  trifle.  They  can  live  in  style  here  on  what  would 
be  a  beggarly  income  at  home.  They  can  keep  a 
houseful  of  servants — servants  for  everything — ^be- 
long to  the  best  clubs,  keep  horses,  never  touch  foot 
to  the  ground,  for  a  sum  that  at  home  would  hardly 
suffice  a  department  clerk.  Major  J.,  who  was  in  the 
Indian  mutiny,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  who  has  been  here 

[187] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

forty-seven  years,  said  to  me:  "I'd  like  to  go  'ome, 
don't  you  know,  but  my  little  screw  keeps  me  in 
comfort  'ere;   at  'ome  I'd  be  a  beggar." 

Office  hours  are  10  to  12,  an  hour  at  the  club,  an 
hour  and  a  half  at  tiffin.  Then  from  2 :  30  to  5,  work ; 
then  golf  or  cricket  or  polo  till  7 :  30,  and  dinner  at  8. 
That  is  the  life.  I  have  found  very  few  that  wanted 
to  leave  it,  to  go  back  to  the  strenuous  life,  the  hus- 
tle and  worry  of  home.  The  English  have  set  their 
mark  indelibly  on  all  this  country.  The  leisurely 
ways,  the  mode  of  doing  business,  are  English,  modi- 
fied to  still  more  slowness  by  the  Chinese  they  deal 
with.  As  soon  as  there  are  a  dozen  English  in  a 
place  they  start  a  club.  They  have  cricket,  golf, 
polo  if  they  can  afford  it,  for  that  is  expensive.  Here 
they  have  the  Shanghai  Club,  a  splendid  old  build- 
ing, with  a  great  library,  rooms  and  rooms  full  of 
books  in  every  tongue.  They  have  golf,  cricket  and 
polo  clubs,  with  beautiful  grounds  almost  in  the  heart 
of  the  city.  They  have  a  country  club  on  the  Bub- 
bling Well  Road  that  is  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world, 
with  a  theatre  for  amateur  performances  and  grounds 
that  are  a  dream.  Every  one  knows  every  one.  It 
is  a  city  with  a  charming  dash  of  the  country  town. 

[-188] 


SHANGHAI. 


The  overpowering  pressure  of  the  Asiatic  Shadow 
draws  them  very  close  together.  French  or  Eng- 
Hsh,  German  or  American,  they  are  White  Men. 
They  fight  for  the  business,  but  they  stand  by  one 
another  in  everything  else  like  members  of  a  secret 
order.  There  is  a  fellowship  of  the  White  Man  out 
here  that  we  know  nothing  of.  All  up  and  down  the 
coast  they  know  each  other.  They  are  so  few,  this 
little  fringe  of  White  Men  clinging  to  the  Yellow  Man's 
flank,  a  white  speck"  in  the  yellow,  a  mere  atom  in 
Asia's  uncounted  millions.  But  they  are  strong  men. 
Most  of  them  have  faced  perils  we  know  nothing  of — 
for  always  there  is  a  yellow  peril  here.  They  hate  us, 
these  Chinese,  not  individually,  but  in  the  mass. 
We  mean  their  National  degradation,  we  are  the  sign 
of  their  weakness,  we  have  trampled  them  under  foot. 
We  forced  the  Son  of  Heaven  to  show  his  face,  to 
give  audience  to  the  Foreign  Devils.  We  have  taken 
their  best  seaports,  their  most  fertile  lands.  We  have 
compelled  them  to  try  their  lawsuits  in  our  courts, 
submit  to  judgments  from  an  alien  judge.  We  have 
beaten  them  over  and  over  again  with  insignificant 
numbers.  We  have  desecrated  their  tombs,  heaped 
indignities  upon  them.    Why  should  they  not  hate 

[189] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

us?  Very  slowly  they  are  beginning  to  realize  where 
they  have  failed.  That  given  the  Open  Door  they 
must  adopt  our  ways,  our  guns,  our  ships,  must  do 
business  in  our  way.  Today  China  is  seeking  to  build 
up  a  navy,  wants  to  repurchase  from  England  the 
"lease"  of  Wei  Hai  Wei,  the  best  port  in  the  North. 
They  are  drilling  troops  everywhere,  buying  arms, 
establishing  a  regular  soldiery.  The  Taiping  Rebel- 
lion showed  what  they  could  do  if  drilled  and  led. 
Gordon  showed  that  even  the  Cantonese  would  fight 
if  they  had  weapons  and  confidence  in  their  officers. 

The  loot  of  Pekin  was  the  last  blow  to  the  old  re- 
gime. The  attack  on  the  foreign  legations  was  the 
last  despairing  effort  of  the  Reactionaries.  When 
seventeen  thousand  foreign  soldiers  marched  through 
the  heart  of  the  North,  stormed  Pekin,  looted  the 
palace  and  drove  the  Emperor  to  seek  shelter  in  the 
West,  even  Tsi  An,  conservative  of  conservatives, 
yielded. 

From  a  taxable  standpoint  China  is  poor.  Given 
an  income  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
divided  among  ten  men,  there  is  a  taxable  surplus. 
Divide  that  among  one  thousand  men,  and  not  much 
remains  to  be  taxed.    So  it  is  in  China.    The  wealth 

[190] 


SHANGHAI. 


is  enormous,  but  so  subdivided,  so  split  up,  that  no 
heavy  rate  of  taxation  can  be  endured.  It  is  rich, 
but  the  wealth  is  so  widely  held  that  it  does  not  yield 
much.  Even  now,  when  China  is  determined  to  stop 
the  opium  traffic,  enforcing  the  prohibition  of  opium- 
smoking  everywhere,  she  is  checked  by  the  inquiry 
of  the  foreigners  whom  she  owes:  "If  you  stop  the 
importation  of  opium,  which  pays  a  big  tariff,  how 
will  you  pay  us?" 

That  is  all  that  checks  the  Yellow  Peril.  Japan  is 
poor,  poor  beyond  belief.  Every  import  duty  is 
pledged.  Even  the  revenues  from  the  state-owned 
railroads  and  the  tobacco  monopoly  are  mortgaged, 
and  everything  is  taxed  to  the  last  limit  it  can  bear. 
It  would  not  be  borne  but  for  the  wonderful  patriot- 
ism of  the  Japanese,  who  place  country  first  of  all. 
The  Chinese  have  not  come  to  that  yet,  but  they  are 
coming.  My  cabin-boy.  Ah  Wing,  one  day  unbur- 
dened his  heart  to  us,  and  he  is  a  Chinese  Patriot. 
He  reviled  Li  Hung  Chang  bitterly.  Said  that  he 
was  a  boodler  who  gave  up  to  Japan,  sold  Korea  for 
gold.  He  said  "China  much  big  country,  big  coun- 
try on  map.  Hab  got  much  men.  Japan  little 
country.     China  give  up  to  Japan.     Li  bad  man. 

[191] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Plenty  bad  man.  Sell  China  to  put  in  his  box."  Li 
left  a  fortune  of  fifty  millions,  and  started  a  poor 
boy  who  took  the  examinations  and  secured  a  small 
place  at  the  outset  without  friends  or  family  to  help 
him. 

China,  like  Russia,  is  the  victim  of  her  officials. 
Just  the  other  day  one  of  the  Imperial  Censors  was 
suspended  because  he  had  accused  a  member  of  the 
Council  of  accepting  a  present  of  ten  thousand  taels 
(about  $7500)  from  a  Viceroy,  and  the  present  of  a 
singing-girl  from  a  Governor,  to  overlook  some  of 
their  transgressions.  Later  the  Censor  was  justified, 
and  the  Viceroy  and  Governor  degraded.  There  is 
no  system  of  taxation  in  China.  The  Taotai  of  a 
city  receives  no  salary.  He  wrings  what  he  can  from 
his  people,  gives  what  he  must  to  the  Imperial  Treas- 
ury, bribes  the  necessary  officials  to  let  him  keep  the 
rest,  and  the  whole  system  is  one  of  corruption  and 
graft. 

The  Imperial  Household  is  always  hard  up.  There 
is  no  money  to  buy  guns  and  ships  or  set  China  on  its 
feet.  Yet  the  country  is  rich,  and  with  a  fair  admin- 
istration of  finances  would  soon  have  a  surplus.  It 
is  far  richer  than  Japan,  that  in  forty  years  has  built 

[192] 


SHANGHAI. 


up  a  great  armament  on  land  and  sea  and  fought  two 
successful  wars.  It  lacks  the  Strong  Man,  the  Man 
who  shall  come,  like  the  Mikado  of  Japan,  surround 
himself  with  men  like  Ito  and  Togo  and  set  this  peo- 
ple on  their  feet. 

The  worst  blot  on  the  Chinese  civilization  is  their 
treatment  of  women.  From  Confucius  down,  their 
wi'itings  belittle  women.  They  are  kept  in  absolute 
ignorance,  learn  nothing,  know  nothing.  A  Chinese 
husband  cannot  get  any  pleasure  out  of  the  society 
of  his  wife,  and  hence  seeks  the  singing-girls,  who  are 
educated  to  converse  and  amuse.  It  is  considered 
degrading  for  a  woman  to  be  informed,  to  know  how 
to  talk,  to  be  on  an  equality  with  man.  All  her  use 
is  to  bear  sons.  Even  this  is  changing,  however. 
That  these  customs  are  not  immutable,  that  China 
can  move,  is  shown  in  the  gradual  disuse  of  foot-bind- 
ing. You  rarely  see  a  young  woman  with  distorted 
feet.  They  are  usually  elderly  women.  A  great 
society  in  China  started  by  foreigners,  but  now 
mainly  led  by  Chinese  women,  has  all  but  put  a  stop 
to  it.  There  are  schools  for  girls  in  all  the  coast  and 
river  towns,  and  the  school-master  is  abroad.  With 
the  gradual  elevation  of  women  will  come  the  most 

[193] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

radical  change  in  Chinese  life.  Now  it  is  a  gross  im- 
propriety to  ask  a  high-class  Chinese  about  his  wife 
or  daughters.  You  may  inquire  of  his  sons,  but  you 
must  not  mention  his  women.  Polygamy  is  allowed, 
but  under  restrictions.  If  the  first  wife  bears  a  son, 
there  is  not  often  a  second;  but  if  rich,  he  may  buy 
slaves.  If  the  first  wife  is  barren,  or  has  only  daugh- 
ters, he  is  permitted,  nay,  required  to  take  a  second 
or  third.  He  may  take,  as  a  fact,  just  as  many  as  he 
can  support.  But  the  first  wife  is  always  the  head 
and  others  are  only  secondary.  Their  rights  in  the 
house,  in  the  family  estate,  are  always  much  lower 
than  those  of  the  first.  She  contracts  the  marriage 
of  the  sons,  no  matter  whether  they  are  hers  or  another 
wife's.  Tsi  An  was  a  secondary  wife  of  the  Emperor, 
but  her  wit  and  cleverness  enabled  her  to  assume 
the  position  of  Empress  Dowager.  She  is  It,  no 
doubt  of  that.  There  is  a  great  surplus  of  females 
in  China.  There  are  about  five  per  cent  more  girls 
than  boys  born  each  year.  Female  infanticide  has 
been  of  the  commonest,  open.  Attempts  are  being 
made  with  some  success  to  stop  it,  but  provision  must 
be  made  for  the  surplus  girls.  Even  the  slave  market 
and  polygamy  do  not  provide  for  them. 

[194] 


SHANGHAI. 


Not  many  years  ago,  the  Doctor  was  hunting,  up- 
country,  and  in  a  pond  found  the  bodies  of  two  new- 
bom  female  infants.  He  called  some  coolies  who 
were  near  by.  They  knew  who  put  them  there; 
told  the  doctor,  but  justified  it.  "Him  b'long  much 
poor  man,  belly  poor.  Hab  got  five,  six.  No  can 
catch  chow,  what  can  do?  Must  go  to  pond."  It  is 
a  great  mass  to  start  moving  after  its  long  lethargy, 
but  it  is  beginning.  Lack  of  intercommunication, 
isolation  into  separate  provinces,  lack  of  a  common 
tongue,  have  prevented  the  growth  of  a  real  national 
feeling.  Patriotism  as  the  Japanese  understand  it 
is  unknown.  But  even  that  is  awakening.  The 
repeated  encroachments  of  the  foreigner,  the  injus- 
tice with  which  China  has  been  treated,  the  contempt 
which  foreigners  show  Chinese  here  in  their  intercourse 
with  them,  is  slowly  arousing  a  national  feeling.  A 
desire  for  the  ability  to  resent,  to  defend  themselves. 
To  show  how  China  is  treated:  The  other  day  the 
Hague  Conference  was  discussing  some  additions  to 
the  rules  of  civilized  warfare.  The  Chinese  delegates 
timidly  suggested  that  they  would  like  to  have  the 
rules  of  war  applied  to  "expeditions."  That  is  what 
we  call  it  when  we  send  a  force  into  China  to  punish 

[195] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

her  for  some  despairing  outbreak  against  us.  The 
other  delegates  promptly  replied  that  this  could  not 
be  done,  as  these  expeditions  were  punitive,  intended 
to  punish  China  for  some  dereliction,  some  infringe- 
ment on  foreign  rights.  It  did  not  seem  to  occur  to 
them  that  war  usually  comes  from  the  same  cause. 
But  the  request  was  refused.  So  it  will  still  be  law- 
ful for  civilized  troops  in  China  to  do  as  they  did  in 
the  Pekin  expedition — to  ravish  women,  desecrate 
tombs,  steal  private  property,  in  short,  disregard 
every  rule  of  civilized  warfare. 

Shanghai  is  the  center  of  all  the  disaffection  against 
the  reigning  family.  There  are  many  native  papers 
printed  here  that  circulate  throughout  China.  All 
of  them  are  progressive,  most  of  them  incendiary, 
but  the  Government  cannot  touch  them  here.  If 
a  Chinese  reformer  is  close  pressed,  he  flees  to  Shang- 
hai and  is  safe.  It  is  the  Switzerland  of  the  East. 
So  the  city  is  full  of  agitators,  reformers  and  revolu- 
tionists. Of  course  they  are  the  ablest  men  in  the 
Empire,  and  China  is  doing  what  Russia  is  trying  to 
do,  drive  out  every  man  of  intelligence  and  initiative. 
But  there  is  no  Siberia  for  China,  and  as  I  have  said, 

[196] 


SHANGHAI 


even  in  this,  China  is  ahead  of  Russia.  The  throne 
admits  that  there  are  grievances,  Hstens  to  memorials, 
has  a  Board  of  Censors  to  ferret  out  corruption  and 
injustice,  and  seems  to  be  making  an  honest  effort  to 
better  the  system.  Yesterday  it  was  again  announced 
that  China  is  to  have  a  Constitution  very  soon,  and 
the  provincial  governors  were  urged  to  make  haste 
in  the  preparations  for  it.  Well-informed  foreigners 
expect  to  see  a  radical  change  in  the  Government 
within  five  years.  They  are  in  doubt,  somewhat 
fearful  as  to  the  effect  on  their  own  position  here. 
They  know  they  cannot  hold  these  concessions  an 
hour  in  the  face  of  awakened  China.  If  China  should 
reorganize  her  army  and  make  an  alliance  with  Japan 
she  would  be  able  to  dictate  terms.  The  conserving 
influence  is  Japan.  But  you  may  set  this  down: 
there  will  be  no  more  encroachments  on  China.  The 
last  piece  of  her  ground  has  been  alienated. 

Everyone  realizes  the  vast  potentialities  of  trouble 
that  exist  out  here.  Emperor  William  was  not  far 
wrong  when  he  painted  the  picture  of  the  Yellow 
Peril.  But  I  do  not  personally  think  the  Chinese 
will  ever  become  aggressive,  or  however  strong  they 
may  become,  wage  a  war  of  conquest.    All  they  ask, 

[197] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

all  they  hope  for,  is  to  be  strong  enough  to  secure 
justice  for  themselves,  and  they  know  it  cannot  be 
had  without  an  army  and  navy  as  counsel  for  their 
side  of  the  case.  Every  effort  is  being  made  now  to 
presei've  the  status  quo.  Nation  after  nation  is  bind- 
ing itself  to  preserve  the  territorial  integrity  of  China 
from  further  spoliation,  and  at  the  same  time  keep 
the  slice  it  has  secured.  Every  one  deprecates  a 
war.  No  one  wants  the  Yellow  Man  to  wake  up  and 
find  his  strength.  The  admission  of  Japan  to  the 
family  of  nations,  the  conspicuous  part  it  is  taking 
in  the  Hague  Conference,  are  disquieting  enough  to 
Europe.  She  wants  no  more.  The  great  body  of 
the  Chinese,  the  educated  class,  which  comprises 
almost  a  majority  of  its  population,  are  honest  and 
just.  Given  a  constitutional  form  of  government 
that  would  secure  to. the  nation  this  great  body  of  in- 
telligence, and  China  need  not  be  feared.  She  will 
deal  fairly  with  the  foreigner  in  affairs  of  state  as 
she  does  now  in  private  business. 

I  have  written  somewhat  at  length  of  these  things, 
as  I  found  all  conditions  out  here  so  different  from 
my  preconceptions.  It  is  all  so  new  to  me  that  I 
have  thought  it  might  be  new  to  others. 

[198] 


SHANGHAI 


We  have  given  up  Pekin.  I  am  told  that  the  smells 
there  are  even  worse  than  those  of  Canton.  I  have 
enough.  I  am  looking  forward  to  Japan,  for  which  we 
sail  tomorrow.  Here  is  a  dull  uniformity  of  shaven 
foreheads  ard  pigtails  that  makes  all  faces  look  alike. 
A  stereotyped  costume  that  wearies  the  eye.  Narrow 
streets,  sullen  faces,  a  great  shadow  that  hangs  over 
it  all.  They  are  so  incomprehensible,  so  mysterious, 
these  Asiatic  minds.  The  oldest  residents  tell  me 
that  after  thirty  years'  intercourse,  there  are  Chinese 
points  of  view  they  cannot  find,  depths  and  recesses 
of  the  Chinese  mind  they  cannot  understand ;  at  the 
last  they  remain  strangers.  I  feel  at  every  step  an 
alien.  I  can  understand  the  French,  the  Germans, 
the  European  peoples.  I  can  joy  in  their  joys,  share 
their  sorrows,  sympathize  with  their  misfortunes, 
enter,  though  briefly,  into  their  lives.  Here,  I  am 
wholly  excluded.  I  know  that  I  do  not  penetrate 
below  the  surface.  I  can  never  hope  to  know  them, 
nay,  though  I  traveled  from  Tonkin  to  the  Great 
Wall.  I  should  simply  see  more  millions,  who  con- 
stantly evade  my  inquiry.  I  like  to  get  to  the  bottom 
of  things.  I  like  to  feel  that  I  know ;  that  I  can  be, 
if  only  for  an  hour,  a  part  of  the  people  where  I  am. 

[199] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

I  would  fain  be  one  of  them  while  I  am  with  them. 
It  cannot  be  here.  I  am  tired,  utterly  tired  of  the 
Celestial  Kingdom.  I  shall  never  see  it  again.  I 
would  not  live  .here  for  the  mines  of  Golconda.  But 
in  Japan  I  feel  at  home..  The  wide  streets,  the  gar- 
dens and  flowers,  the  kindly  smiling  faces,  the  ex- 
quisite courtesy  from  high  and  low,  the  variety  and 
multiform  charm  of  that  people,  draw  me  irresistibly. 
They  are  not  as  honest  as  the  Chinese,  and  presently 
I  shall  give  you  a  reason  for  that ;  and  it  is  only  tem- 
porary, born  of  peculiar  conditions,  it  is  not  racial, 
but  I  feel  as  though  I  could  live  and  die  with  them  and 
be  content. 

I  look  forward  to  seeing  them  again  as  one  looks 
forward  to  some  delightful  entertainment.  Yester- 
day I  saw  a  Japanese  woman  on  the  streets  tottering 
along  in  her  narrow  kimono,  her  clogs  and  her  white 
stockings,  and  I  could  not  forbear  an  "ohayo"  to  her. 
She  twinkled  into  a  smile  and  made  me  her  funny 
Japanese  bow,  and  I  felt  as  if  I  were  home  again. 

Before  I  leave  China,  however,  I  want  to  say  some- 
thing about  the  character  of  this  most  strange  peo- 
ple as  I  have  observed  them,  studied  them,  and 

[200] 


SHANGHAI. 


learned  of  them  from  men  who  have  spent  the  most 
of  their  Uves  here.  To  the  Occidental  they  are  a 
bundle  of  contradictions.  They  are  the  most  honest, 
industrious,  and  most  temperate  people  in  the  world. 
I  believe  I  mentioned  that  in  Canton,  a  city  of  two 
million  people,  there  is  not  a  drinking-place,  a  saloon, 
a  grog-shop,  or  a  drug-store  with  a  back  room,  or  any 
place  where  anything  intoxicating  can  be  procured. 
That  is  true  of  old  Shanghai,  true  of  the  native  part 
of  Hong  Kong,  Macao,  and  Hankow,  The  higher 
classes  drink,  very  moderately,  a  rice  wine,  a  kind  of 
brandy  that  they  make,  and  in  the  coast  •  towns 
European  drinks,  but  always  in  moderation.  The 
lower  and  middle  classes  drink  not  at  all,  except  tea. 
A  drunken  Chinaman  would  be  as  much  of  a  curiosity 
as  a  Chinaman  with  two  heads.  There  is  no  need  of 
temperance  societies  here. 

They  are  very  charitable,  giving  freely  of  their 
means  to  relieve  the  poverty  and  distress  of  their 
poorer  countrymen.  After  the  San  Francisco  earth- 
quake China  relieved  the  distress  of  the  Chinese  in 
San  Francisco  as  promptly  and  even  more  liberally 
than  we  relieved  the  distress  of  our  people.  They 
are   more   kindly  in   the   family  relation   than  we. 

[201] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Families  live  more  harmoniously.  Family  ties  are 
stronger.  Filial  duty  is  paramount,  and  in  no 
country  in  the  world  is  the  family  relation  in  all  its 
branches  held  more  tenaciously  or  more  sacredly  than 
in  China. 

And  yet  they  are  a  very  cruel  people.  Their  penal 
code  is  the  most  terrible  in  the  world.  Torture  to 
secure  a  confession  is  still  a  part  of  their  system.  The 
lin-chi,  or  hewing  in  pieces  as  a  public  punishment, 
was  abolished  only  a  year  ago.  It  was  witnessed 
with  apparent  enjoyment  by  thousands  whenever  it 
took  place.  The  victim  was  strapped  to  a  pole,  and 
the  executioner  with  a  sharp  knife  gradually  dismem- 
bered him;  first  a  hand,  then  a  foot,  then  an  arm 
at  the  shoulder,  then  a  leg  at  the  knee,  and  last  of 
all  the  head,  until  nothing  but  a  bloody  torso  re- 
mained. I  have  seen  photographs  taken  on  the  spot 
of  one  of  these  executions,  showing  every  detail  of 
it:  the  executioner  cheerfully  pausing  in  his  bloody 
work  to  let  the  photographer  record  the  last  step, 
and  the  photographs  show  a  sea  of  faces  surrounding 
the  place  of  execution,  apparently  enjoying  intensely 
the  sufferings  of  the  victim.  Such  things  as  break- 
ing a  man's  legs  to  make  him  confess,  searing  him 

[202] 


SHANGHAI. 


with  hot  irons  and  putting  out  his  eyes,  are  still 
common.  It  is  hard  to  reconcile  these  things  with 
their  general  kindliness  toward  one  another,  the  fine- 
ness of  their  family  relations,  their  charity  for  poverty, 
and  their  many  other  good  qualities.  To  the  end 
of  time  they  must  remain  an  anomaly,  an  enigma  to 
the  Western  mind ;  but  one  thing  should  not  be  for- 
gotten: There  must  be  something  great  in  the 
Chinese  race,  something  strong  in  its  character,  some- 
thing of  wisdom  in  its  governmental  system,  for  China 
has  existed  as  a  nation,  as  a  governmental  entity, 
with  practically  its  present  boundaries  and  its  pres- 
ent system,  longer  than  any  other  nation  or  govern- 
ment has  endured  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Nor 
is  it  now  decadent.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  the 
Chinese  to-day  to  be  one  of  the  strongest  races  in 
the  world,  a  race  whose  greatest  history  is  yet  to  come. 
In  the  intelligence,  sobriety  and  industry  of  its  vast 
population  it  is  unsurpassed  by  any  nation  in  the 
world.  Given  a  decent  government,  the  growth  of 
a  national  spirit  will  follow  and  China  will  take  its 
place  among  the  great  powers  of  the  world;  and  it 
will  be  a  power  that  will  make  for  peace,  not  war,  or 
territorial     aggression.     Profoundly    interesting    in 

[203] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

every  way,  historically,  governmentally,  ethically 
and  otherwise  is  this  great  mysterious  realm. 

Perhaps  when  I  recover  from  the  smells  and  for- 
get as  one  does  the  disagreeable  things,  I  shall  want 
to  come  back.  Certainly  I  have  never  seen  any  other 
country  as  interesting  in  all  its  phases. 

F.  and  her  sister  have  met,  once  more,  to  part  again, 
perhaps  for  the  last  time.  It  will  be  a  hard  wrench, 
and  it  will  be  hard  to  think  of  them  out  here  expatri- 
ated, living  always  under  this  Shadow,  but  they  are 
content,  and  we  cannot  stay. 

To-morrow  we  turn  Eastward,  turn  toward  Home. 


I  204 


JAPAN     (Continued). 

Shanghai  lies  fifty  miles  from  the  sea,  and  twelve 
miles  from  Woosung,  at  the  mouth  of  the  A\Tiangpoa, 
which  is  rtally  the  port  for  Shanghai.  The  P.  &  0. 
steamers  and  large  war  vessels  go  clear  up  to  Shanghai, 
but  vessels  which  touch  for  but  a  day  anchor  at 
Woosung,  on  the  Yangste,  and  a  tender  takes  passen- 
gers and  mails  the  rest  of  the  way.  When  our  ten- 
der left  the  wharf  there  was  a  great  crowd  to  see  it 
off,  the  greater  part  of  whose  attention  seemed  to  be 
concentrated  on  one  man,  a  slight,  bald-headed  gen- 
tleman, manifestly  embarrassed  by  the  number  of 
bouquets  that  were  jDeing  handed  up  to  him,  and 
especially  so  by  a  terrific  fusillade  of  gigantic  Chinese 
fire-crackers  that  exploded  just  as  we  started.  Natu- 
rally when  they  yelled  "What's  the  matter  with  G,?" 
and  replied  enthusiastically  that  G.  was  all  right, 
most  of  them  with  voices  that  indicated  they  had  been 
up  the  night  before,  we  wondered  what  particular 
High  Grand  Mr.  G.  was.  Later  we  discovered  that 
he  was  a  nice,  unassuming  business  man,  an  Ameri- 
can who  had  been  out  there  fifteen  years  and  was 

[  205  ] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

now  going  back  to  his  native  America,  and  this  was 
the  Far-East  way  of  wishing  him  good-by.  The  de- 
parture of  a  white  man  out  there,  if  he  is  a  good  fellow, 
leaves  a  big  gap,  very  different  from  this  country. 
When  I  returned  from  a  three  months'  absence  in 
Europe  a  friend  met  me  and  said,  "You've  been  away, 
haven't  you?  I  haven't  seen  you  for  a  week."  Out 
there  they  are  few,  and  they  stick  together. 

Possibly  I  have  expressed  my  opinion  of  the  China 
Sea  before,  but  here  it  is  again.  It  is  stormy,  foggy, 
full  of  unexpected  currents,  treacherous,  and  in  color 
resembles  discouraged  dishwater.  It  is  just  as  un- 
lovely as  China  itself.  It  is  the  dread  of  mariners, 
and  no  liner  navigates  it  without  an  experienced 
pilot  clear  from  Hong  Kong  to  Nagasaki.  When 
we  started,  a  typhoon  was  loafing  around  the  Loo 
Choo  Islands,  apparently  laying  for  us,  but  we  missed 
it.  We  saw  the  wreck  of  a  big  French  warship  that 
had  run  ashore  in  a  fog,  swept  out  of  its  course  by  one 
of  these  unaccountable  currents.  We  were  lucky; 
we  missed  the  fogs  and  the  typhoon,  and  once  more 
saw  the  noble  harbor  of  Nagasaki  open  before  us 
with  nearly  as  much  pleasure  as  we  shall  feel  when 
we  see  the  Golden  Gate. 

[206] 


JAPAN. 

We  had  expected  mail  here,  but  were  disappointed. 
The  barnacle  who  inflicts  himself  upon  our  consular 
service  at  this  place  had  thoughtfully  forwarded  it, 
without  orders,  to  Hong  Kong,  so  that  we  shall  now 
get  it  about  two  months  after  we  reach  home. 

I  learn  from  our  newspapers  that  our  consular  serv- 
ice in  the  Far  East  is  improving  rapidly.  Maybe 
it  is.  I  am  glad  I  did  not  have  to  do  with  it  before 
it  improved.  It  is  an  asylum  for  incapables  now, 
filled  with  derelicts  that  various  political  storms  have 
cast  ashore,  and  picked  up  by  a  friendly  administra- 
tion that  seems  to  think  our  appointive  positions  are 
refuges  for  Congressmen,  whom  their  constituents 
have  rejected  and  political  sub-bosses  whom  the 
bossees  have  kicked  out. 

Once  more  we  savored  the  pleasant  odors  of  Japan, 
absorbed  its  kindly  smiles,  answered  its  funny  bows 
and  jigjigged  over  the  hills  and  far  away  in  our  rick- 
shaws, and  were  happy.  We  did  not  linger  at  Naga- 
saki or  Kobe.  Old  Japan  was  a-calling  us,  and  we 
barkened  to  the  call.  We  landed  at  Kobe  in  the 
morning,  bag  and  baggage,  and  there  was  quite  a 
lot  of  it,  for  the  cheapness  of  beautiful  things  in  China 
had  tempted  us  a  little,  and  my  letter  of  credit  was 

[207] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

considerably  shorn  by  our  stay  there.  When  we 
reached  the  custom-house  I  told  the  officer  that  we 
were  American  travelers  passing  through  Japan. 
That  our  stuff  would  be  shipped  through  to  Yoko- 
hama, with  the  exception  of  our  smaller  baggage. 
That  if  desired  they'  could  bond  it  for  the  Yokohama 
office.  He  replied  that  that  was  unnecessary,  made 
a  chalk-mark  on  each  package,  and  we  were  free. 
Think  of  it ! — and  Japan  is  a  high-protection  country, 
a  stiff  tariff  on  everything.  How  would  an  American 
custom-house  official  have  treated  such  a  request? 
With  contempt,  insolence  and  rudeness.  He  would 
have  opened  every  package,  tumbled  everything  out, 
kept  us  there  half  a  day,  and  then  permitted  us  to 
repack  things  ourselves. 

The  U.  S.  Customs  Service  is  the  most  exasperating 
in  the  world.  Its  employes  make  no  distinction  be- 
tween the  traveler  they  know  to  be  a  professional 
smuggler,  and  the  ordinary  tourist.  But  the  most 
absurd  thing  about  it  is  the  graft  called  the  "courtesy 
of  the  port."  The  Collector  of  the  Port  may  in  his 
discretion  grant  to  any  person  what  is  known  as  the 
courtesy  of  the  port,  and  the  favored  one's  baggage 
goes  through  without  examination.     At  Manila,  Chas. 

[208] 


JAPAN. 

H.  Towne,  of  New  York,  one-time  Senator  from 
Minnesota  for  six  weeks  by  virtue  of  a  gubernatorial 
appointment  to  fill  a  vacancy,  but  for  several  years 
a  private  citizen,  had  the  "courtesy  of  the  port," 
and  his  stufT  went  through  without  examination, 
while  my  handbag  had  to  go  to  the  custom-house 
and  I  did  not  get  it  till  the  next  day. 

Once  in  a  while  the  Ud  comes  off,  and  we  get  a 
glimpse  through  some  exposure  of  the  rottenness  of 
our  customs  service,  but  the  Treasury  Department 
is  always  able  to  force  it  back  on  again  before  we  get 
more  than  a  glimpse. 

We  left  Kobe  on  the  afternoon  train  that  skirts 
the  great  bay  of  Kobe,  and  stopped  for  two  hours 
at  Osake  to  see  a  "modern"  manufacturing  town; 
Originally  Osake  was  a  beautiful  old  Japanese  town 
seat  of  a  once  great  Daimio,  and  renowned  for  its 
feudal  castle.  The  hand  of  progress  has  touched  it 
and  turned  it  into  a  Packingtown,  a  Homestead,  a 
Paterson,  New  Jersey,  with  all  of  their  ills  and  none 
of  their  benefits.  A  great  forest  of  chimneys  marks 
the  new  cotton  factories  and  iron  mills. 

A  smoky  pall  covers  the  city,  and  in  place  of  the 
wide  clean  streets,  gardens  and  villas  of  other  Japan- 

[209] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

ese  cities,  we  found  rows  of  hideous  tenements,  rushed 
up  Hke  mushrooms,  with  corrugated  iron  roofs,  hid- 
eous, unspeakable,  true  factory  hives. 

It  is  the  boast  of  these  new  textile  mills  that  they 
can  compete  with  the  v/orld,  and  some  of  them  made 
last  year  as  high  as  thirty-five  per  cent  after  paying 
enormous  bonuses  to  certain  directors.  I  should 
think  they  could.  They  employ  main-y  women  and 
children,  twelve  hours  a  day,  and  at  a  wage  that  is 
simply  inhuman.  If  child-labor  is  cheap  in  America, 
imagine  what  it  is  in  Japan,  where  women  tend  looms 
for  twelve  hours  for  ten  cents  a  day.  I  was  told 
that  children  eight  years  old  work  twelve  hours  a 
day  in  these  mills — there  is  no  child-labor  law  here 
— for  a  wage  of  five  cents  a  day  of  our  money. 

We  saw  one  of  these  mills,  a  familiar  sight,  just 
like  America,  but  worse, — a  vast  room,  filled  with 
shrieking  machinery,  dust,  odors,  and  uncleanness, 
poor  light  and  less  air,  and  amid  these  whirling 
spindles  and  hideous  noises  tiny  figures  feeding  the 
remorseless  machines,  escaping  death  and  mutilation 
only  by  care  unceasing,  bent,  hollow-eyed,  old  before 
their  time, — and  all  for  a  wage  that  would  not  sup- 
port a  dog  in  decency.    Oh,  yes,  "commercial  su- 

[210] 


JAPAN. 

premacy"  is  a  fine  thing,  a  high-sounding  phrase, 
but  is  it  worth  what  it  costs?  Japan  is  reaching  for 
it,  and  her  rich  men  are  playing  the  same  game  that 
English  and  American  manufacturers  have  played. 
Demanding  an  enormous  tariff  for  the  "protection 
of  Japanese  labor,"  and  themselves  absorbing  every 
penny  of  the  protection,  and  grinding  their  employes' 
blood  and  nerves  into  huge  profits.  Old  Japan  was 
fair,  beautiful,  prosperous,  contented  and  happy, 
but  the  demon  of  competition  has  entered.  Am- 
bition demands  a  first  rank  with  the  world-powers, 
and  so  we  have  protection,  manufactures,  child-labor, 
hideous,  unsightly  towns,  a  few  very  rich  and  the 
great  mass  underpaid,  underfed,  vilely  housed,  drag- 
ging out  a  bare  existence. 


KIOTO. 

We  left  Osake  with  relief  and  turned  our  faces  to 
Kioto,  to  old  Japan.  One  of  the  confusing  things 
about  Japanese  railways  is  the  fact  that  the  names 
of  the  larger  towns  never  appear  on  the  time  table, 
only  the  name  of  the  station,  which  is  something 
entirely  different.  Tokyo  appears  on  the  time  table 
as  Shimbashi,  Yokohama  as  Kodzu,  and  so  on.    But 

[211] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

we  were  in  no  doubt  at  Kioto.  The  hotel  at  Kobe 
had  wired  the  Kioto  hotel  that  we  were  coming  on  a 
certain  train,  and  we  had  our  taste  of  a  really  Japan- 
ese hotel.  At  the  station  a  little  Jap  dressed  in  Euro- 
pean fashion  bustled  into  our  compartment,  touched 
his  hat,  and  without  a  word  grabbed  our  bags  and 
handed  them  to  a  waiting  porter.  We  followed  him 
outside  to  a  carriage,  a  low-hung,  one-horse  victoria 
with  a  driver  in  livery.  He  bowed  and  touched  his 
hat.  The  moment  we  were  seated  he  was  off  at  a 
swift  trot,  with  a  long-legged  boy  in  the  hotel  livery 
running  ahead.  The  streets  are  so  narrow  that  a 
boy  always  runs  ahead  of  the  carriages  to  warn  rick- 
shaws at  the  intersecting  streets.  We  drove  miles, 
it  seemed,  through  streets  fairly  wide,  filled  with 
traffic,  all  on  foot,  endless  shops  decorated  and  gaily 
displayed,  till  finally  we  entered  a  court-yard  and  drew 
up  before  the  portico  of  a  big  stucco-front  building. 

It  was  embarrassing.  There  stood  the  manager, 
the  assistant  manager,  two  or  three  clerks,  the  head 
waiter,  seven  or  eight  bell-boys,  (girls,  I  mean;  the 
bell-boys  are  girls  here,)  all  the  waiters,  coolies  and 
rickshaw  men,  at  least  twenty  in  all,  all  bowing  and 
bobbing  and  kowtowing  at  once  and  sucking  in  their 

[212] 


JAPAN. 

breath  for  fear  that  an  exhalation  might  offend  our 
honorable  noses. 

As  an  American  citizen,  accustomed,  to  being 
bullied  by  the  head  waiter,  ignored  by  the  clerk  and 
snubbed  by  every  one  about  a  hotel,  it  was  flatter- 
ing; but,  yes,  it  was  embarrassing.  Like  George 
Washington  and  the  negro,  I  did  not  want  to  be  out- 
done in  politeness  by  any  Jap,  and  when  anyone 
bowed  to  me  I  bowed  back,  but  I  had  to  give  it  up. 
Every  time  I  looked  at  the  clerk  or  the  head  waiter 
or  a  bell-girl  or  a  cooly  he  bowed,  and  so  I  quit  look- 
ing at  them.  I  bowed  three  hundred  and  forty-one 
times  the  first  hour,  and  then  I  quit.  I  concluded 
that  I  had  done  enough  for  politeness,  and  after  that 
I  maintained  my  American  rigidity. 

They  escorted  us  to  a  great  room  on  the  second 
floor ;  I  say  escort,  for  our  cortege  comprised  the  en- 
tire office  force,  all  the  bell-girls,  and  part  of  the 
waiters.  Our  room  was  on  the  second  floor,  a  cor- 
ner room,  big  enough  for  a  family,  beautifully  fur- 
nished, and  overlooking  a  delightful  garden,  filled 
with  strange  bloom  and  foliage,  through  which  lazily 
meandered  a  clear  little  stream  filled  with  gold-fish, 
with  a  toy  bridge  across  it,  a  toy  summer-house  on 

[213] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

its  bank  and  toy  children  playing  in  its  bamboo  bor- 
der. It  was  just  like  a  scene  from  a  Japanese  fan, 
quiet,  still,  a  touch  of  rus  in  urbo  that  made  it  de- 
lightful. 

We  went  dowTi  and  had  a  six-course  dinner,  the 
best  I  have  eaten  in  the  East  except  at  the  Boa  Vista, 
exquisitely  serv^ed,  miraculous  neatness  everywhere. 
And  now,  before  we  go  out  for  an  evening's  rick- 
shaw ride  through  this  old  city,  a  word  about  it. 

Kioto  was  the  old  capital  of  the  Mikado,  during  the 
Shogunate  and  until  its  abolition  in  1868.  Here  the 
Mikado  lived  in  complete  seclusion,  never  visible  to 
his  subjects,  and  surrounded  by  a  semi-religious 
court;  while  the  actual  power  and  sovereignty  were 
exercised  by  the  Shogun,  whose  capital  was  Yeddo, 
now  Tokio. 

Who  was  the  Shogun?  I  shall  not  assume  that 
my  readers  know  more  than  I  did  when  I  went  to 
Japan.  I  knew  who  the  Mikado  was,  but  the  Sho- 
gun was  a  name  imknown;  so  before  getting  any 
deeper  into  Japan,  I  shall  tell  you  a  little  of  Japanese 
history,  enough  to  help  an  understanding  of  these 
people. 

[214] 


JAPAN. 

The  Mikado  is,  as  every  one  knows,  at  once  the 
spiritual  and  temporal  head  of  Japan.  He  combines 
in  himself  Emperor  and  Pope.  He  is  head  of  the 
Church  as  well  as  of  the  State,  and  the  two  are  com- 
bined in  his  person.  He  is  more  than  Pope,  how- 
ever. Devoutly  believed  to  have  descended  from 
the  Sun,  through  a  direct  and  imbroken  ancestry, 
he  is  in  a  sense  a  celestial  being,  a  God-King.  He 
is  worshipped  as  well  as  obeyed.  Of  course  this 
latter  phase  is  wearing  away  with  the  introduction 
of  Occidental  ideas,  and  it  is  only  in  the  remoter  dis- 
tricts that  the  Mikado  cult  holds  full  force;  but  the 
fact  remains  that  to  his  people,  all  his  people,  he  oc- 
cupies a  higher  position  than  any  other  earthly  po- 
tentate. To  that  is  largely  owing  the  fanatic  devo- 
tion of  his  people,  their  imreasoning  loyalty,  their 
supreme  courage  in  battle. 

Prior  to  the  Seventh  Century,  the  Mikado  held  the 
same  position  he  now  does,  temporal  and  spiritual 
head.  But  Japan  was  not  then  a  compact  empire. 
It  was  split  into  clans,  septs,  each  warring  with  the 
other,  and  there  was  but  little  central  authority. 

About  the  last  of  the  Seventh  Century  the  powerful 
Fujiwara  clan  seized  the  temporal  power,  bent  the 

[215] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

other  clans  or  broke  them,  and  made  of  the  Mikado 
the  spiritual  head,  themselves  absorbing  all  lay  func- 
tions of  government. 

From  that  on  the  Mikado  became  a  mere  puppet 
in  the  hands  of  this  regency,  akin  to  the  Mayors  of 
the  Palace  under  the  last  Carlovingian  kings  in  France. 

The  title  of  these  military  and  civil  rulers  was  Sho- 
gun.  When  the  first  Europeans  came  in  contact 
with  the  Japanese,  they  heard  only  of  the  Shogun, 
but  by  a  name  that  foreigners  roughly  spelled  Ty- 
coon, and  it  was  as  the  tycoon  that  we  learned  of  the 
rulers  of  Japan  when  we  went  to  school  in  the  sixties. 

But  the  Shoguns  not  only  made  of  the  Mikado  a 
spiritual  figure-head — they  deposed  and  set  up  Mi- 
kados  when  they  pleased.  Sometimes  there  were 
rival  Mikados,  set  up  by  different  powerful  clans; 
for  the  Shoguns  were  unable  to  preserve  order,  and 
the  country  was  the  scene  of  innumerable  civil  wars 
for  eight  hundred  years.  The  whole  country  was 
feudal;  Daimios,  or  heads  of  clans,  held  their  own 
fiefs,  made  war  or  peace  with  each  other,  adminis- 
tered justice,  and  largely  ignored  the  central  author- 
ity. This  lasted  till  the  country  was  desolate  and  the 
Mikado's  court  was  left  without  revenue  and  often 

[216] 


JAPAN. 

half-starved.  The  body  of  one  Mikado  lay  at  the 
gate  of  his  palace  for  forty  days  before  the  money 
could  be  raised  to  pay  the  funeral  expenses. 

Finally  the  strong  man  came,  one  Nobunaga,  in 
1573,  who  subdued  the  clans  and  grasped  the  Sho- 
gunate.  He  died  suddenly  in  1582,  and  was  succeeded 
by  Hideyoshi,  a  great  general,  who  fairly  welded  the 
country  into  one,  and  to  purge  the  country  of  its 
turbulent  spirits  invaded  Korea  unsuccessfully.  At 
his  death,  in  1598,  he  was  succeeded  by  leyasu,  the 
greatest  man  that  Japan  has  ever  produced ;  in  fact, 
one  of  the  greatest  men  the  world  has  seen. 

leyasu  founded  the  Tokagawa  Shogunate,  which 
gave  fifteen  rulers  to  Japan  in  unbroken  line,  and 
lasted  tni  1868,  when,  under  the  stress  of  conflict 
with  foreign  powers,  the  old  system  broke  down. 
The  Shogunate  was  abolished,  the  present  Mikado 
retook  the  government,  and  later  gave  Japan  the 
constitution  that  it  now  enjoys. 

leyasu  was  a  great  general,  a  great  lawgiver,  a 
diplomat,  a  state-builder,  a  Csesar  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  He  broke  the  power  of  the  Daimios,  limited 
the  number  of  Saumurai  or  military  class,  enforced  a 
wise  system  of  legislation,  redistributed  the  great 

[217] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

fiefs  among  his  followers,  and  in  addition,  as  a  safe- 
guard against  rebellion,  compelled  each  Daimio  to 
spend  part  of  the  year  at  the  capital  of  the  Shogunate 
which  he  established  at  Yeddo,  and  to  leave  hostages 
from  his  family  always  in  the  Shogim's  power. 

He  encouraged  agriculture,  made  roads  and  canals, 
and  so  restored  peace  and  order  that  Japan  grew  in 
wealth  and  population  beyond  anything  ever  known. 
Modem  Japan  is  what  leyasu  made  it.  He  left  a 
testament,  a  code  of  maxims  for  his  descendants, 
and  a  series  of  minute  directions  not  only  for  the 
government  of  his  country,  but  for  its  daily  life,  its 
social  observances,  its  family  relations;  in  short,  a 
strait-jacket  for  every  Japanese,  that  they  have  worn 
for  three  hundred  years,  till  they  have  assumed  its 
shape,  and  now  that  it  is  removed  continue  instinct- 
ively to  imitate. 

Here  is  one  of  his  maxims : 

"Life  is  like  unto  a  long  journey  with  a  heavy 
load.  Let  thy  steps  be  slow  and  steady,  that  thou 
stumble  not.  Persuade  thyself  that  imperfection 
and  inconvenience  is  the  natural  lot  of  mortals,  and 
there  will  be  no  room  for  discontent,  neither  for 
despair.  If  ambitious  desires  arise  in  thy  heart, 
recall  the  days  of  extremity  thou  hast  passed  through. 

[218] 


J|A  P  A  N  . 

Forbearance  is  the  root  of  quietness  and  assurance 
forever.  Look  upon  wrath  as  thine  enemy.  If  thou 
knowest  only  what  it  is  to  conquer,  but  loiowest  not 
what  it  is  to  be  defeated,  woe  unto  thee! — it  will 
fare  ill  with  thee.  Find  fault  with  thyself  rather 
than  with  others.    Better  the  less  than  the  more." 

One  other  thing  he  did  that  was  destined  to  have 
memorable  consequences  to  his  country.  Prior  to 
his  reign  the  Dutch  had  secured  a  foothold  at  Naga- 
saki, had  a  trading  station  there,  and  were  doing  a 
lucrative  trade.  The  Jesuits,  reaching  over  from 
China,  had  established  missions  and  made  thousands 
of  converts  by  tolerating  Ancestor  Worship  and  en- 
grafting Christianity  upon  it  as  they  did  in  China. 
It  was  the  time  of  greatest  power  of  the  Buddhists, 
before  the  decay  of  that  religion,  and  leyasu  himself 
was  Buddhist  as  much  as  he  was  anything,  but  he 
was  tolerant  in  religious  matters. 

But  his  first  aim  was  the  unification  of  Japan,  and 
he  soon  saw  that  the  Jesuits  aimed  at  nothing  less 
than  complete  power.  Just  as  he  was  making  this 
discovery,  Walter  Adams,  an  English  shipmaster, 
was  captured  on  the  coast  by  a  local  Daimio.  He 
was  taken  before  leyasu,  who  inamediately  took  a 
fancy  to  this  blunt  English  sailor,  who  knew  the  coun- 

[219] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

tries  beyond  the  sea  and  particularly  knew  what  the 
Jesuits  were.  Adams  told  him  of  the  persecutions 
in  Europe,  of  St.  Bartholomew,  of  the  Inquisition; 
and  leyasu's  half-formed  purpose  of  expulsion  hard- 
ened into  a  resolve. 

The  Jesuits  were  expelled  after  a  bloody  struggle,  in 
which  at  the  last  fifty  thousand  were  surrounded 
and  killed.  Christianity  was  forbidden  on  the  pain 
of  death,  and  so  thoroughly  did  he  do  his  work,  that 
no  trace  of  it  remained  three  hundred  years  later. 
Adams  was  never  allowed  to  return  to  England, 
leyasu  kept  him  there,  married  him  to  a  native, 
made  him  a  Daimio,  and  his  tomb  is  to  be  seen  just 
above  Kamakura. 

With  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  the  Buddhists 
began  to  raise  their  heads  and  assert  temporal  powers. 
Many  Daimios  sided  with  them,  and  a  short  but  bloody 
civil  war  followed.  A  Buddhist  himself,  leyasu  did 
not  scruple  to  storm  a  castle  held  by  Buddhists  and 
slaughter  every  one  in  it,  including  the  priests.  He 
taught  them  their  lesson  so  thoroughly  that  it  was 
never  forgotten,  and  civil  war  in  any  guise  never 
again  raised  its  head  in  Japan. 

Considered  as  a  state-builder,  he  ranks  with  the 

[220] 


JAPAN. 

greatest  the  world  has  seen,  for  he  took  Japan,  a 
scattered  mass  of  clans  and  feudal  sovereignties, 
owing  no  allegiance  to  the  central  power,  weak  and 
devastated  by  civil  war,  and  left  it  welded  into  one 
nation, — strong,  peaceful  and  prosperous,  and  so  it 
remained.  He  restored  the  Mikado  to  his  former 
state,  and  was  scrupulous  in  observance  of  all  the 
rites  due  to  the  spiritual  head. 

Not  to  know  of  leyasu  is  not  to  know  Japan  or 
why  it  is  what  it  is  today. 

When  the  Shogunate  fell,  the  Mikado  transferred 
his  capital  to  Yeddo,  the  old  capital  of  the  Sho- 
gunate, and  renamed  it  Tokio,  or  "Western  capital." 

The  transfer  of  the  capital  from  Kioto  was  a  severe 
blow,  and  for  a  time  it  languished  and  lost  population, 
but  it  had  strong  men  who  organized,  aided  in  the 
establishment  of  new  industries  and  the  rebuilding 
of  old  ones,  and  it  is  now  a  city  of  four  hundred  thou- 
sand, the  seat  of  the  finest  bronze,  silver,  and  silk 
workers  in  Japan. 

Well,  our  rickshaw  has  been  waiting  all  this  time 
and  I  must  introduce  you  to  Asole,  who  was  our  guide, 
counselor  and  friend  throughout  our  stay.     For  fifty 

[221] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

cents  a  day  apiece  he  and  another  hauled  us  from 
nine  o'clock  till  ten  at  night,  always  ready,  cheerful 
polite  and  knowledgable.  Asole  knows  his  Kioto 
every  inch.  He  knows  where  the  best  and  cheapest 
bronzes  are  to  be  had,  the  finest  embroideries,  the 
best  ivory- workers.  He  was  neat,  tireless,  soft- 
voiced,  and  good  to  look  at.  He  had  a  bookful  of 
recommendations,  signed  by  many  distinguished  peo- 
ple, and  I  added  my  own  name  with  a  fervent  rec- 
ommendation which  I  here  and  now  repeat. 

That  first  night  he  took  us  to  a  kind  of  street  fair 
that  was  being  held  on  an  island  in  the  river,  where 
we  saw  the  Japanese  at  play.  Mind  you,  Kioto  is 
as  much  old  Japan  as  Canton  is  old  China.  We  saw 
but  four  white  people  in  the  city,  and  they  came  from 
the  same  boat  with  us.  It  has  never  been  altered 
or  spoiled  like  the  coast  towns. 

Kioto  streets  at  night  are  fairy-land.  There  are 
no  electric  street  lights,  but  before  each  little  shop 
hangs  a  huge  paper  lantern  with  the  owner's  name  in 
gaudy  colors  on  it,  and  so  the  street  is  a  long  vista 
of  gorgeous,  many-colored  lights,  bobbing  and  sway- 
ing in  the  night  breeze.  Every  one  is  on  the  street, 
for  these  people  work  in  daylight  and  shop  and  visit 

[  222  ] 


JAPAN. 

and  gossip  in  the  evening.  The  streets  are  sufficiently 
wide,  for  the  houses  are  never  more  than  two  stories. 
There  is  no  noise  of  vehicles,  nor  horses  or  automobiles, 
just  the  click-clack  of  the  wooden  clogs,  the  swish 
of  kimonos,  the  soft  laughter  and  low  voices  of  the 
passing  throng.  There  is  no  disorder,  no  hurry,  no 
quarreling,  no  drunkenness,  no  flaunting  of  silk  side 
by  side  with  rags.  Every  one  is  clean,  neatly  clothed, 
merry,  smiling,  cheerful. 

Every  turn  is  a  new  picture,  gay  yet  harmonious, 
sparkling,  bewitching.  Our  rickshaws  glide  along 
on  rubber  tires,  smoothly,  noiselessly.  Each  house- 
holder sprinkles  and  sweeps  the  street  before  his  own 
property ;  there  is  no  dust,  no  dirt,  no  smells.  It  all 
looks  as  though  the  curtain  had  just  risen,  the  stage 
setting  all  complete,  every  actor  in  fancy  costume  in 
place. 

It  is  so  charming  it  is  unreal.  It  is  not  a  workaday 
world,  just  a  holiday  playtime  world.  Even  the  shop- 
keepers seem  playing  at  shop-keeping  as  they  bow 
and  smile  and  gossip  with  their  customers.  And 
how  much  fun  those  little  people  get  out  of  the  spend- 
ing of  a  five-cent  piece!  They  wander  from  shop  to 
shop  and   admire  and  bow  and   chatter  and   chaf- 

[223] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

fer,  till  you  wonder  that  they  ever  get  anything 
bought. 

Finally  we  reach  the  fine  stone  bridge  across  the 
river.  The  quaint  two-story  houses  with  quainter 
balconies,  covered  with  vines,  all  illuminated  with 
lanterns,  lean  over  the  banks ;  and  far  down  the  river 
you  can  see  row  on  row  of  lights  reflected  in  the  clear- 
flowing  swift  water,  and  hear  the  sound  of  the  samisen 
where  the  geisha-girls  are  entertaining  visitors  in  the 
tea-houses  that  abound  here. 

Below  on  the  gravelly  island  is  a  great  crowd,  the 
Japanese  Fair.  It  would  take  too  long  to  tell  of  the 
attractions;  and  sooth,  they  are  mostly  of  American 
invention.  There  are  three  merry-go-rounds  that  are 
crowded  all  the  time;  cheap,  as  befits  the  Japanese 
purse;  a  five-minutes  ride  for  two  cents.  There  are 
chariots  for  the  elders  and  riding-horses  hung  from 
ropes  for  the  youngsters,  so  hung  that  they  can  be 
made  to  curvet  and  rear  in  the  most  realistic  way. 
One  gallant  young  cavalryman,  perhaps  eight  years 
old,  made  his  steed  prance  and  dance  in  a  fearsome 
way,  and  hugely  enjoyed  our  open  awe  and  admira- 
tion. The  Japanese  family  play  all  together.  The 
man  does  not  leave  the  woman  to  lug  the  children. 
On  the  contrary,  he  carries  them  himself,  looks  after 

[224] 


JAPAN. 

them,  amuses  them.  They  are  good  comrades  and 
enjoy  each  other,  and  the  mother  totters  along  be- 
side them  unburdened. 

There  is  no  race  suicide  here.  Every  couple  seem 
to  have  a  quiverful.  There  is  a  shoot  the  chutes, 
"made  in  America."  All  sorts  of  dioramas,  fortune- 
tellers, canes  for  ring-throwing,  darky  heads  to  throw 
a  ball  at — all  American.  In  short,  one  wonders  what 
the  Japanese  did  for  amusement  before  the  American 
invasion. 

One  of  the  funny  things  was  a  little  circle  like  a 
circus-track,  with  four  little  ponies  for  riding.  For 
five  cents  you  could  mount  and  gallop  around  this 
tiny  circle  ten  times.  It  was  very  funny  to  see  a 
Jap  gather  up  his  kimono  and  go  bobbing  gravely 
around  the  circle  with  the  impression  that  he  was 
learning  to  be  a  horseman.  Horses  are  almost  un- 
known in  Japan,  and  they  have  never  learned  to  ride. 
I  am  told  that  there  is  nothing  much  funnier  than  a 
Japanese  cavalry  regiment  at  its  evolutions.  No 
wonder  they  could  outmarch  the  other  troops  on  the 
road  to  Pekin.  Shank's  mare  has  been  their  con- 
veyance from  the  beginning,  is  now.  They  know 
what  their  legs  are  for,  and  how  to  use  them. 

[225  J 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Asole  guided  us,  explained  everything,  translated, 
bought  our  tickets  (for  we  went  to  everything),  and 
when  the  show  was  over  trotted  us  home  in  the  soft 
night  air,  through  the  streets  that  were  still  crowded, 
though  it  was  eleven  o'clock.  Occasionally  a  lan- 
tern had  burned  out  and  a  shop-front  was  dark,  but 
still  the  city  was  gay,  gayer  than  in  the  daytime.  It 
is  Broadway  in  little  about  theatre-time. 

How  much  like  home  our  hotel  seems,  with  its 
cheerful  welcoming  faces,  its  soft-voiced  courtesy, 
its  prompt  and  willing  service.  How  I  loathed  the 
thought  of  an  American  hotel  after  the  "Kioto." 

Of  course  the  next  morning  the  first  thought  of  the 
feminine  mind  was  shopping.  We  had  letters  to 
various  shopkeepers  from  a  big  importing  house  that 
guaranteed  us  the  ''lowest  wholesale  rates."  Well, 
after  vainly  trying  to  buy  things  in  these  big  stores 
where  the  prices  are  almost  as  high  as  in  America, 
we  committed  ourselves  to  Asole.  The  big  stores 
all  have  salesmen  in  the  hotels,  and  wares  displayed 
there.  Beware  of  them.  The  hotel  gets  a  profit  on 
every  dollar  you  buy.  Asole  took  us  to  shops  we  had 
never  heard  of.    Tiny  places  on  side  streets  where 

[226] 


JAPAN. 

the  art  of  old  Japan  has  never  been  defiled  by  foreign 
contact.  We  bought  bronzes  in  a  shop  that  has  been 
conducted  by  the  same  family  on  the  same  spot, 
descending  from  father  to  son,  for  more  than  three 
hundred  years.  The  front  is  undecorated;  just  a 
little  sign.  You  enter  a  court,  and  then  through 
room  after  room  that  would  fiU  a  collector  with  joy. 
I  am  often  asked,  when  people  examine  some  of  our 
curios,  "Were  those  made  by  hand?"  My  dear  lady 
or  gentleman,  everything  is  made  by  hand  in  Japan ; 
that  is,  everything  worth  buying.  They  make  noth- 
ing with  machinery.  In  the  past  few  years  some  fac- 
tories are  turning  out  cheap  imitations  of  hand-work 
with  machinery,  and  that  is  what  we  often  buy  in 
this  country  as  Japanese  art,  but  in  these  old  shops 
everything  is  made  by  hand.  We  saw  them  work 
and  make  those  beautiful  things,  so  different  from 
our  workshops.  You  go  up  a  narrow  stair  into  a 
long  room  that  seems  all  windows,  mostly  open  and 
looking  out  onto  a  charming  garden,  with  a  little 
waterfall  and  a  bridge,  some  bronze  storks  standing 
about  a  fountain,  lotus  blooming  in  the  pond,  and 
wistaria  just  out  of  bloom,  hanging  its  long  tresses 
from  a  little  pergola. 

[227] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

They  are  artists,  each  one,  who  signs  his  own  work. 
Even  a  carven  bamboo  cane  I  have  is  signed  by  the 
artist  who  carved  it.  They  will  not  work  unless  there 
are  beautiful  things  about  them.  They  cannot,  nor 
will  they,  work  unless  they  are  happy,  in  tune  with 
their  work. 

No  great  painter  is  more  scrupulous  of  his  atmos- 
phere and  his  own  spirit  than  these  workmen.  You 
could  not  get  them  to  work  under  other  conditions. 
Many  of  them  are  working  here  in  the  same  room 
for  the  same  employer  where  and  for  whom  their 
fathers  and  grandfathers  worked. 

This  is  not  to  be  a  treatise  on  Japanese  art,  but  I 
want  to  tell  of  a  few  of  the  things.  For  instance,  I 
saw  a  cabinet,  perhaps  five  feet  high  by  four  wide  and 
two  deep,  of  the  old  gold  lacquer,  for  which  the  owner 
asked  ten  thousand  dollars.  Six  men  worked  on  it 
for  three  years.  This  lacquer  takes  twenty-two  pro- 
cesses before  it  is  finished,  and  then  it  is  good  for  the 
ages.  Time  and  weather  have  no  effect  on  it.  I  saw 
walls  and  walls  of  it  in  the  Nikko  temples  that  have 
been  there  for  three  hundred  years,  still  fresh  and 
glowing.  I  thought  I  had  seen  red  lacquer  in  this 
countiy,  but  I  was  mistaken.    The  real  red  lacquer 

[228] 


JAPAN. 

is  nearly  as  expensive  as  the  gold  lacquer.  A  small 
box  was  twenty  dollars.  A  little  tray  ten  dollars. 
But  these  are  art  treasures,  and  few  of  them  go  out- 
side of  Japan. 

These  old  stores  that  Asole  took  us  to  cater  to  the 
Japanese  trade  almost  exclusively.  In  many  of  them 
they  had  no  English,  for  Americans  never  find  their 
way  there.  They  work  patiently,  slowly  building 
up  an  art  object  that  will  last  for  all  time,  for  people 
who  know  how  much  time  there  is.  Time  is  no  ob- 
ject if  the  end  be  attained.  The  master  of  the  shop 
knows  his  workmen  intimately.  They  work  to- 
gether. Each  workman  feels  for  the  honor  of  his 
house,  and  for  no  money  would  he  slight  a  piece  of 
work  or  do  his  second  best.  When  he  is  ill,  tired, 
worried,  "not  happy,"  he  quits  till  he  is  in  tune  with 
his  work  again. 

I  think  that  Kioto,  however,  excels  in  bronzes. 
The  variety  is  infinite,  for  no  patterns  are  duplicated 
except  by  special  order.  And  the  prices  on  these  are 
certainly  very  low  compared  with  even  inferior  bronze 
work  at  home.  I  had  at  home  a  bronze  globe  for  an 
electric  hght.  I  bought  one  like  it,  but  better  bronze, 
in  Kioto  for  just  one-fifth  the  Kansas  City  price 

[229] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

The  place  for  silverware  is  Yokohama,  and  I  shall 
describe  that  later. 

In  the  afternoon  we  visited  some  of  the  temples, 
and  there  are  many  in  Kioto,  but  none  of  them  com- 
pare with  those  at  Nikko ;  and  I  shall  leave  the  tem- 
ple business  for  Nikko. 

One  morning  we  went  to  the  Geisha  school,  where 
three  hundred  young  girls  are  being  taught  the  art. 
The  training  of  a  geisha  commences  when  she  is  six, 
and  is  kept  up  till  she  graduates  at  fifteen.  They 
usually  retire  at  twenty  or  twenty-three;  in  fact, 
they  seldom  dance  after  they  are  eighteen. 

We  were  shown  over  the  school  by  the  writing- 
master,  one  of  the  most  charming  gentlemen  I  have 
met  in  or  out  of  Japan.  He  spent  two  hours  with  us, 
and  when  on  leaving  I  ventured  to  offer  a  tip  he  was 
rather  put  out. 

We  saw  the  whole  thing.  In  one  room  they  are 
taught  to  cut  and  make  their  own  clothes;  in  an- 
other, to  read  and  write.  That  was  our  guide's 
room.  In  another,  to  play  the  samisen,  a  long  in- 
strument that  looks  like  a  half-log,  with  strings  on 
its   back,   and   the    three-stringed   lute.    They   are 

[230] 


JAPAN. 

taught  to  sing  to  this  accompaniment,  and  anything 
more  excruciating  than  a  Japanese  song  I  have  never 
heard.  It  is  a  high  nasal  of  about  four  notes,  with 
little  slips  and  slides  and  quavers  in  the  most  unex- 
pected places,  and  apparently  endless.  One  song,  the 
guide  informed  us,  was  a  love  song,  "Oh,  very  pas- 
sionate!" It  sounded  like  a  tomcat  on  a  moonlit 
night. 

But  of  course  it  was  the  dancing  we  came  mostly 
to  see,  and  we  saw  them  all, — the  Cherry  Dance,  the 
Dance  of  the  Harvest  Moon,  the  Dance  of  the  Bam- 
boo, and  so  on.  The  cherry,  plum,  pine  and  bamboo 
are  the  four  "happy  trees"  of  Japan,  and  there  is  a 
dance  for  each  one,  besides  many  others.  It  is  not 
dancing  according  to  our  notions,  just  little  steps 
here  and  there,  posturings,  and  gestures,  kneelings 
and  bowings  and  genuflections.  An  ancient  geisha 
who  looked  as  though  she  might  be  a  hundred  sat 
in  front  and  dictated  each  movement  of  the  body, 
the  eyes,  the  hands,  the  fan,  and  the  little  creature 
watched  her  with  painful  intensity  and  sought  to 
imitate  her.  Sometimes  it  takes  six  months  to  learn 
a  single  dance,  for  every  movement,  every  gesture, 
the  movement  of  the  eyes  even,  must  be  exactly  so. 

[231] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

And  then  we  had  the  tea  service.  We  entered  one 
of  the  little  rooms  and  squatted  on  the  floor.  An- 
other ancient  geisha  presided,  and  met  us  with  bows 
that  brought  her  forehead  to  the  floor.  She  and  our 
guide  had  probably  met  a  dozen  times  that  day,  but 
they  bowed  three  times  to  each  other,  clear  to  the 
floor.  Then  a  girl  brought  in  the  tea  and  the  service 
began.  Understand,  it  is  a  rite.  Every  movement 
must  be  just  so.  From  the  teacup  or  bowl  she  takes 
a  little  cloth,  dips  it  in  a  jar  of  hot  water,  lays  it  on 
a  certain  side  of  the  cup,  moves  it  three  times  around 
the  cup,  and  lays  it  in  a  particular  place.  Then  she 
bows  to  the  company.  Then  she  puts  in  the  tea, 
bows,  adds  the  hot  water,  bows,  covers  it  for  a  mo- 
ment, bows,  and  then  with  a  little  brush  whisks  the 
tea  leaves  out,  and  the  tea  is  made.  In  receiving 
it  from  the  attendant  you  should  take  it  with  both 
hands,  shift  it  once  around,  and  then  drink  it  with 
a  sucking  noise,  which  denotes  satisfaction.  Some- 
times the  girl  would  make  a  mistake:  she  failed  to 
lay  the  hot- water  dipper  at  the  proper  angle.  The 
ancient  geisha  rapped  sharply  with  her  fan,  and  the 
girl  started  and  changed  it  a  fraction.  This  tea  serv- 
ice has  been  handed  down  for  hundreds  of  years, 

[232] 


JAPAN. 

immutable,  unchangeable,  and  it  is  the  last  and 
closing  part  of  a  geisha's  education.  A  Japanese 
would  be  grossly  offended  if  a  girl  should  deviate  a 
fraction  from  the  prescribed  usage.  It  is  interest- 
ing once,  but  veiy  tiresome,  as  is  the  whole  geisha 
business. 

It  is  part  of  the  old  ceremonial  life  of  Japan,  the 
most  exactly  fixed,  complex,  stilted,  artificial  and 
sophisticated  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  is  ruled 
and  ordered  as  everything  in  Japan  is. 

The  geisha  class  are  easily  to  be  distinguished  on 
the  street  by  the  way  their  hair  is  dressed.  Other 
Japanese  women  roll  their  hair  on  the  top  and  back 
of  the  head  with  a  sort  of  pompadour  in  front. 
The  geishas  wear  the  pompadour,  but  the  roll  is 
changed  to  a  sort  of  butterfly  bow.  The  old  geishas 
we  saw  had  about  nine  hairs  left,  but  the  nine  were 
arranged  in  a  bow,  four  on  one  side  and  five  on  the 
other.  While  we  were  drinking  our  tea  the  writing- 
master  inquired  if  we  knew  Madam  Blank,  wife  of  a 
retired  general  of  our  army.  Unfortunately,  we  had 
not  the  honor.  He  told  us  that  Madam  Blank  and 
her  two  daughters  learned  the  tea  service  at  this 
school,  and  one  of  them  learned  some  of  the  dances. 

[233] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

He  added  naively:  "I  always  hear  American  radies 
much  fraida  to  show  theira  leg.  Madam  Blank  and 
her  daughters  not  at  all  fraida."  Bully  for  Madam 
Blank!  Evidently  she  learned  something  over  here 
besides  the  tea  service. 

I  have  been  asked  "Are  the  geishas  immoral?" 
To  answer  that  question  one  would  have  to  go  into 
the  WOMAN  QUESTION  in  Japan — a  weighty,  doubt- 
ful, deep  and  dangerous  subject;   but  here  goes. 

No  Japanese  is  immoral.  They  are  just  unmoral; 
that  is,  they  have  no  morals  as  we  understand  it. 
The  sex  relation  is  all  ordered,  ruled  and  fixed,  like 
everything  else.  Boys  and  girls  do  not  play  to- 
gether, mix  together,  or  associate.  Wives  are  picked 
for  their  sons  by  the  mothers.  They  are  all  mar- 
riages de  convenance.  There  are  no  chance  unions, 
no  seductions,  no  bastards.  It  is  not  considered  im- 
moral for  a  girl  to  enter  a  tea-house  for  an  appren- 
ticeship of  three  or  four  years,  to  have  commerce 
with  men  for  hire.  She  receives  at  the  end  of  the 
time  a  stipulated  sum,  with  which  for  a  dowry  she 
marries  and  is  a  faithful  wife  and  a  devoted  mother. 
The  geisha  class  are  professional  entertainers,  like 

[234] 


JAPAN. 

the  flower-girls  of  China.  They  are  usually  immoral, 
nearly  always  so.  When  they  retire  with  their  earn- 
ings they  marry  as  do  other  girls.  It  is  no  disgrace ; 
it  is  simply  a  profession.  No  man  of  the  middle 
class  would  hesitate  to  marry  a  geisha  or  tea-house 
girl  if  her  dowry  were  sufficient.  It  is  as  hard  for  a 
Japanese  girl  to  marry  as  for  a  French  girl,  unless 
she  has  a  dowry,  however  small;  something  she  can 
contribute  to  the  family  fortune.  But  the  French 
girl  without  a  dot  is  condemned  to  celibacy,  while 
the  poor  Japanese  girl  may  without  shame  become 
a  geisha  or  a  tea-house  attendant,  earn  her  dowry 
and  marry. 

I  cannot  better  show  the  present  stage  of  Japanese 
morals  than  by  this  instance,  perfectly  authenti- 
cated, published  in  all  the  Tokio  newspapers  with 
full  names.  The  Japanese  Government  maintains 
in  Tokio  a  house  of  prostitution  known  as  the  Toshi- 
wara.  It  contains  thirty-two  hundred  inmates,  and  is  a 
government  institution,  like  the  tobacco  monopoly 
and  the  railways.  Many  curious  things  might  be 
told  of  this  place,  where  American  women  go  with- 
out criticism  to  see  this  side  of  Japanese  life.  We 
did  not,  for  lack  of  time,  but  were  told  of  it  very 

[235] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

fully.  Well,  during  the  last  war  a  Japanese  desired 
to  go  and  serve  his  country,  but  was  debarred  by  the 
fact  that  he  had  a  wife  dependent  on  him.  She  re- 
moved the  bar  by  entering  the  Toshiwara  till  his  re- 
turn from  the  war.  So  far  from  being  disgraced,  she 
was  exalted,  highly  commended  for  this  act  of  patri- 
otism. Match  that  if  you  can,  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  The  Japanese  have  solved  two  phases  of  the 
sex  question :  there  are  no  bastards  and  no  old  maids 
in  Japan.  Don't  ask  me  about  the  latter — you  would 
not  believe  me,  and  it  is  too  complex  to  explain  here, 
but  it  is  true. 

Of  course  the  last  word  has  not  been  said  on  mar- 
riage, and  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  any  more  in  Japan 
than  elsewhere,  and  many  phases  of  it  are  changing 
there.  Among  the  higher  classes,  love  matches  are 
now  common  where  they  were  formerly  unknown, 
but  the  things  I  have  told  remain  true  to-day  in  their 
entirety.  Once  more  I  say  the  Occidental  and  the 
Oriental  cannot  meet;  there  is  a  gulf  fixed  between 
them. 

When  you  read  of  the  traffic  in  Chinese  and  Japan- 
ese girls  for  immoral  purposes  on  the  Pacific  slope, 
and  when  I  tell  you  that  the  men  engaged  in  it  are 

[236] 


JAPAN. 

men  of  high  standing  among  both  races,  men  of  pro- 
bity, position,  themselves  moral,  you  wiU  wonder. 
Perhaps  the  last  few  pages  will  partially  explain. 
Their  attitude  toward  women  is  wholly  different  from 
ours,  and  it  remains  the  glory  of  the  Teutonic  races 
that  from  their  earliest  history  the  virtue  of  woman 
has  been  one  of  their  cherished  ideals.  No  other 
race  in  history  has  given  women  the  rank  that  the 
Teutons  have. 

Let  us  turn  from  this  unpleasant  subject,  unpleas- 
ant, yet  necessary  if  you  would  understand  Japan,  to 
something  more  cheerful. 

We  visited  the  great  Jiujitsu  school  one  afternoon, 
or  rather  one  noon,  for  this  exercise  is  enforced  upon 
all  high-school  boys  three  days  in  the  week,  from  twelve 
till  two.  It  is  held  in  a  great  one-story  building,  open 
on  all  sides.  There  were  five  instructors,  and  we  saw 
nearly  a  hundred  pupils  all  at  it.  This  was  the  real 
jiujitsu,  especially  when,  after  the  pupils  were  through, 
two  of  the  professors  gave  an  exhibition.  It  is  hard 
to  describe,  because  it  is  hard  to  understand  when 
you  see  it.  Every  movement  is  made  with  such 
lightning  quickness  that  the  eye  can  hardly  follow 

[237] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

it.  Of  course  the  science  of  all  wrestling  is  leverage. 
The  application  of  force  at  a  point  where  the  leverage 
is  in  favor  of  the  attacking  party.  Every  hold 
maneuvered  for  is  to  that  end,  like  the  half-Nelson, 
the  hammer  lock,  and  so  on.  Jiujitsu  is  simply  a 
scientific  extension  of  this  principle,  infinitely  worked 
out.  There  are  some  three  hundred  separate  holds 
or  positions  in  it.  The  opponents,  in  linen  jackets 
and  short  trousers,  barefooted,  face  and  grasp  each 
other  by  the  neck  and  arm;  it  is  really  a  "collar- 
and-elbow  hold."  A  appears  to  give  ground,  and 
suddenly,  placing  his  foot  just  above  his  opponent's 
knee,  throws  himself  on  his  back.  His  opponent, 
forced  by  the  pressure  on  his  leg,  which  will  break 
unless  he  yields,  goes  up  and  over  on  the  foot  of  A, 
clear  over  and  onto  the  floor,  ten  feet  away.  Nearly 
all  the  holds  are  based  on  this  principle.  If  the  hold 
is  secured,  you  must  go  down  or  have  a  limb  broken. 
The  answer  to  this  hold  is  for  the  opponent  to  throw 
himself  quickly  on  the  floor  beside  A,  and  the  struggle 
is  resumed  on  the  floor,  for  it  is  not  a  fall  till  one  hip 
and  shoulder  touch  the  floor. 

It  was  a  wonderful  exhibition  of  agility,  strength, 
and  good -nature.    A  boy  would  be  thrown  ten  feet, 

[238] 


JAPAN. 

clear  over  the  head  of  his  opponent,  and  get  up  laugh- 
ing and  resume  his  hold.  Every  high-school  pupil 
must  take  this  for  at  least  two  years.  Four  years' 
study  qualifies  to  teach. 

In  the  same  room,  a  few  feet  away,  the  girls  of  the 
high  school,  some  fifty  of  them,  were  learning  fenc- 
ing. There  were  three  teachers,  two  middle-aged 
men  and  one  girl,  the  sprightliest,  quickest  and  most 
athletic  piece  of  femininity  I  have  ever  seen.  They 
use  two-handed  wooden  swords,  grasped  with  both 
hands,  in  shape  and  size  exactly  like  the  old  saumurai 
blades.  They  stamp  and  shout  and  rush  at  each 
other,  feint,  guard,  strike  and  recover  like  old  swords- 
men. Like  everything  Japanese,  it  is  conventional. 
So  many  strokes  this  way,  such  a  guard  for  every 
stroke,  all  laid  down  and  ordered  and  ruled. 

I  fancy  in  the  old  days,  when  the  great  swordsmen 
flourished  in  Japan,  they  threw  the  rules  away  in  a 
real  fight;  but  it  is  fine  exercise  for  the  little  girls, 
and  they  would  come  up  to  our  platform  panting 
and  glowing  with  health  and  exercise  when  they  were 
through.  No  wonder  they  are  a  healthy  people,  with 
their  outdoor  lives,   their  constant   exercise,   their 

[  239  ] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

temperance  in  food  and  drink,  their  cleanliness  and 
simple  living. 

On  one  of  those  golden  evenings  Asole  decided  to 
show  us  a  Japanese  theater.  There  were  plenty  to 
choose  from,  some  twenty,  all  together  on  Theatre 
street,  a  gay  scene  with  the  gaudy  entrances,  fervid 
announcements  of  the  attractions  in  each,  crowds 
coming  and  going,  Japanese  orchestras  splitting  the 
air,  a  Japanese  Rialto. 

We  voted  for  a  patriotic  play,  a  war  drama  of  the 
old  times.  The  admission  was  five  cents,  the  room 
long  and  narrow,  no  seats,  just  a  matting  on  which 
we  squatted.  The  room  was  fairly  well  filled,  with 
all  ages  and  both  sexes,  who  had  left  their  clogs  at 
the  door.  How  they  ever  find  them  when  they  go 
out  is  a  mystery,  for  they  are  all  the  same  size  and 
look  exactly  alike.  Most  of  the  men  were  smoking, 
\\Tien  the  curtain  rose  on  the  narrow  stage  a  very 
ugly  Jap  strutted  out,  clad  in  an  undershirt  and  a 
skirt  hung  from  his  hips.  He  grimaced  and  strutted, 
stamping  across  the  stage  and  scowling.  Once  he 
half-squatted  and  waddled  across  the  stage,  and  this 
seemed  to  amuse  the  audience  immensely.    Then  he 

[240] 


JAPAN. 

drew  his  two-handed  sword  and  cut  and  slashed  an 
imaginary  enemy  in  the  most  terrifying  way.  Then 
he  went  up  scene,  and  another  and  another  went 
through  the  same  pantomime  tUl  there  were  six  of 
them.  One  of  them  carried  a  club,  and  seemed  to 
be  the  funny  man.  Then  they  lined  up,  three  on  a 
side,  and  apparently  dared  each  other  to  come  on. 
It  took  a  long  time  for  the  scrap  to  start,  and  when 
it  did  it  was  the  tamest  thing  imaginable.  There 
was  never  the  slightest  danger  of  anyone's  getting 
hurt,  and  they  attitudinized  and  grimaced  tiresomely 
for  fifteen  minutes.  Then  the  heroine  appeared. 
She  was  a  buxom  Japanese  girl  with  her  hair  down 
her  back,  which  gave  her  a  very  wild  look  in  that 
land  of  neat  coiffures.  When  she  appeared  there  was 
something  doing.  She  declaimed  for  a  while  in  a 
shrill  voice,  and  then  grabbed  the  club  from  the  funny 
man  and  whacked  him  off  the  stage,  the  others  stand- 
ing apparently  paralyzed  with  amazement.  Then 
she  knocked  the  sword  out  of  the  hand  of  another, 
picked  it  up  and  bored  a  hole  in  his  stomach,  or  pre- 
tended to.  That  settled  him.  He  was  dead.  He 
knew  it,  and  retired  to  a  corner  of  the  stage  hors  du 
combat.    Apparently  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the 

[241] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

manner  of  his  untimely  taking-off,  for  he  calmly 
pulled  up  his  undershirt  and  examined  the  place 
where  there  should  have  been  a  large  hole  in  his 
stomach.  Not  finding  any,  he  seemed  to  feel  re- 
lieved, and  immediately  borrowed  a  cigarette  from 
one  of  the  orchestra,  lit  it,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  per- 
formance was  the  happiest-looking  dead  man  I  have 
seen  in  a  long  time. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  heroine  was  stamping  and 
declaiming,  kicking  up  behind  and  rearing  up  in  front, 
and  swatting  the  other  performers  till  she  had  the 
whole  bunch  down  and  out.  Then  an  attendant 
rushed  out  with  a  Japanese  flag,  and  when  the  cur- 
tain fell  on  the  gory  field  covered  with  dead  and 
wounded  she  was  standing  with  her  legs  straddled 
as  far  apart  as  possible,  still  declaiming  and  waving 
the  flag. 

I  never  did  find  out  what  it  was  about,  for  Asole 
did  not  seem  to  know;  but  it  pleased  the  audience. 


Kioto  is  not  lacking  in  picturesque  scenery,  for  all 
about  it  are  beautiful  hills,  streams,  waterfalls  and 
lakes,   within   easy   driving  distance.    One   of  our 

[242] 


JAPAN. 

memorable  trips  was  to  Lake  Biwa  and  back  down 
the  canal  that  pierces  the  mountains.  The  lake  lies 
several  hundred  feet  above  Kioto,  nestled  in  high 
hills, ''and  drains  into  the  Japan  Sea  to  the  north. 
It  is  only  eight  miles  from  Kioto ;  is  some  fifty  miles 
long  and  from  one  to  twenty  miles  wide.  As  it  is 
surrounded  with  villages,  rice  and  tea  farms,  it  is  a 
busy  watenvay,  and  when  we  saw  its  waters  they 
were  thickly  dotted  with  small  steamers  and  sail- 
boats. In  1888  a  bright  young  Japanese  engineer 
conceived  the  idea  of  utilizing  the  waters  of  the  lake 
for  the  benefit  of  Kioto  and  its  commerce.  He  dug 
a  canal  nine  miles  long  and  thirty  feet  wide  through 
the  hills  and  above  the  valley,  and  finally  led  the 
waters  to  the  very  edge  of  Kioto,  where  there  is  a 
fall  of  two  hundred  feet  that  furnishes  light  for  all 
Kioto,  motive-power  for  the  street  cars  and  for  the 
various  mills.  An  inclined  railway  hauls  boats  up 
from  the  canal  that  runs  from  Kioto  to  Osake;  from 
there  they  are  drawn  by  coolies  to  Lake  Biwa,  thus 
opening  water  transport  from  Osake  on  the  Gulf  to 
the  very  interior  of  the  country. 

We  drove  from  Kioto  to  Otsu,  where  the  canal 
leaves  the  foot  of  the  lake,  a  charming  drive,  with 

[243] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

the  same  low-hung  carriage  with  two  big  fat  horses 
and  the  boy  to  run  in  front.  He  ran  nearly  all  of 
the  eight  miles,  keeping  ahead  of  the  horses  with  ease. 
The  road  leads  up  a  valley  nearly  all  the  way,  a  road 
that  is  one  long  street,  with  farm-houses  touching 
elbows,  and  the  tiny  farms  stretch  back  up  the  hills 
on  either  side.  Not  like  an  American  farm-house, 
I  assure  you,  for  the  first  thing  that  strikes  you  about 
the  farms  in  Japan  is  the  absence  of  domestic  ani- 
mals. Never  a  cow  or  a  horse.  All  the  hauling, 
nearly,  is  done  by  hand,  two- wheeled  carts  hauled 
by  men  and  women.  The  absence  of  cows  puzzled 
me  till  I  learned  the  reason.  There  is  no  grazing  in 
the  Far  East.  You  see  hills  covered  with  beautiful 
verdure,  everywhere  in  China,  Japan,  and  the  Philip- 
pines, but  no  cattle,  not  even  a  goat.  The  grass  is  a 
kind  of  saw-grass,  bamboo-grass,  they  call  it,  that  is 
death  to  ruminants.  The  few  cattle  that  are  kept, 
mainly  bullocks  for  hauling,  are  fed  on  forage,  hand- 
raised,  very  expensive.  I  did  not  taste  fresh  milk 
or  cream  on  the  entire  trip.  Everything  is  con- 
densed milk,  mostly  from  America.  The  beef  and 
mutton  come  mainly  from  Australia  in  refrigerator 
ships.    Just  the  other  day  the  beef  contract  for  our 

[244] 


JAPAN. 

soldiers  in  the  Philippines  was  let  to  an  Australian 
concern.  The  Governor-General  there,  who  has  a 
salary  of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year,  keeps 
two  cows.  By  virtue  of  his  official  position  and  to 
maintain  its  dignity,  he  must  do  so.  It  is  said  that 
the  expense  of  keeping  these  cows  was  one  of  the 
reasons  that  Taft  gave  up  his  job.  We  saw  an  Aus- 
tralian heifer  on  the  streets  of  Manila,  and  she  ex- 
cited more  attention  than  an  elephant  would  here. 

So,  vast  areas  in  Japan  that  would  be  raising  beef 
and  mutton  with  us,  are  barren  wastes,  producing 
nothing,  and  one  great  source  of  agricultural  profit 
is  denied  to  the  farmers  of  Japan. 

The  farm-houses  are  all  alike.  We  stopped  at  one 
for  a  drink  of  water.  The  fronts  are  all  open,  closed 
by  several  doors  that  in  the  daytime  are  slid  back 
into  a  box  at  one  comer.  The  first  room  is  work- 
shop, kitchen  and  dining-room;  in  fact,  the  living- 
room  of  the  house.  It  is  stone-floored,  spotlessly 
clean,  with  a  stone  tub  in  the  middle,  into  which 
pours  a  little  stream  of  pure  water  led  from  the  hills 
above,  that  overflowing  wanders  out  the  back  door 
and  irrigates  a  little  garden.  The  other  room  has 
a  floor  raised  some  two  feet,  covered  with  matting, 

[245] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

and  is  the  sleeping,  reception  and  state-room  of  the 
house.  Here  the  few  family  treasures  are  kept,  and 
here  they  sleep,  on  the  floor,  with  a  kind  of  saw-horse 
for  a  pillow.  No  chairs,  no  beds,  no  carpets, — ^just 
matting  and  saw-horses. 

Two  dollars  would  have  been  an  extravagant  price 
for  all  the  furniture  in  this  house.  Back  of  the  house 
a  path  centuries  old  led  steeply  up  the  hill,  and  at 
every  turn  is  a  stone,  a  sort  of  altar,  reared  to  some 
dead-and-gone  ancestor,  before  which  are  tiny  offer- 
ings of  rice  and  paper  flowers,  just  as  in  China  they 
are  placed  before  the  tombs. 

In  the  larger  houses  the  family  tablets  are  kept 
in  the  living-rooms,  but  in  either  case  they  are  always 
near  by,  reminding  the  descendants  always  of  their 
duty  and  obligation  to  the  dead. 

On  each  side  of  the  road  runs  a  thread  of  water,  not 
idle,  but  busy  everywhere.  Here  it  waters  a  fringe 
of  bamboos,  there  it  irrigates  a  little  rice-field,  and 
next  it  turns  the  overshot  wheel  of  a  mill  where  the 
rice  is  ground.  There  is  nothing  idle  in  Japan,  not 
even  the  water.  In  summer  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
rivers  look  like  the  Arkansas,  for  all  the  water  is  taken 
out  farther  up  and  put  to  some  beneficial  use. 

[246] 


JAPAN. 

Everywhere  on  the  road  is  traffic,  on  foot,  coming 
and  going.  Here  a  cart  with  two  men  drawing  a 
load  heavy  enough  for  a  pair  of  horses,  there  a  woman 
swinging  along  with  two  baskets  of  vegetables  or 
crates  of  fowls,  hung  from  a  bamboo  pole  across  her 
shoulder.  Only  the  children  are  idle.  As  a  rule, 
Japanese  children  have  a  good  time.  They  are  sel- 
dom put  to  work  till  they  are  ten.  They  are  under 
practically  no  restraint  from  birth  till  they  are  eight. 
The  Japanese  believe  that  it  is  useless  to  try  to  dis- 
cipline a  child  of  such  tender  years.  "As  the  twig 
is  bent  the  tree's  inclined"  does  not  go  in  Japan. 
So  until  the  age  of  eight  they  play  in  the  sun,  do  as 
they  please.  At  the  age  of  eight  they  begin  to  be 
restrained,  gradually  at  first,  more  closely,  more 
rigidly  as  they  age,  until  at  fifteen  they  are  typical 
Japanese,  self-controlled,  reserved,  staid,  and  thor- 
oughly disciplined. 

The  discipline  and  routine  become  more  rigid  each 
year  till  the  Japanese  ideal  of  self-control  is  estab- 
lished. Foreign  teachers  in  the  Japanese  schools 
have  commented  on  this  change,  so  gradual  yet  so 
complete,  in  these  formative  years.  The  children 
are  gay,  happy,  careless,  thoughtless,  like  ours.    But 

[247] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

by  the  age  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  they  have  lost  all 
youthful  looks  and  youthful  ways  and  are  miniature 
men  and  women.  As  in  everything  else,  they  re- 
verse our  rules.  In  fact,  everything  in  Japan  is  the 
reverse  of  everything  here.  Even  the  carpenter  pulls 
the  plane  toward  him  instead  of  pushing  it,  and  they 
build  the  roof  first,  the  house  afterward. 

The  canal  leaves  the  lake  at  a  little  fishing-village 
called  Otsu,  and  on  the  hills  above  is  the  old  Mijidera 
temple,  one  of  the  oldest  in  Japan,  before  which  is  a 
gigantic  live-oak  said  to  be  the  oldest  tree  in  Japan, 
and  it  looks  it.  The  view  from  the  temple  platform, 
of  the  lake  winding  away  beyond  eyeshot,  the  sur- 
rounding hills  covered  with  rice  and  tea,  the  busy 
life  of  the  lake,  the  httle  village  below,  make  a  pic- 
ture purely  Japanese. 

^Vhen  we  took  our  seats  in  the  boat  for  the  canal 
trip,  our  hearts  sunk  just  a  little.  A  railway  tunnel 
is  bad  enough,  but  somehow  this  dark  stream  that 
just  before  us  plunges  into  a  low  cavern  cut  in  a  lofty 
hill,  was  rather  gloomy-looking.  Two  boatmen  with 
an  oar  in  the  stern  steer  the  boat  and  the  swift  cur- 
rent does  the  rest.  We  darted  down  between  high 
banks  crowned  with  great  cryptomeria  trees,  shot 

[248] 


JAPAN. 

into  the  vault,  and  the  daylight  was  gone.  We 
could  touch  the  damp  roof  overhead.  An  occasional 
sprinkle  of  water  penetrating  some  crevice  in  the 
skin  of  the  tunnel  was  not  reassuring,  A  paper 
lantern  on  the  bow  with  a  candle  in  it  was  the  only- 
light,  for  the  tunnel  entrance  vanished  quickly.  The 
low  talk  of  the  boatmen,  the  ripple  of  the  subter- 
ranean stream,  resounded  in  the  vault  with  startling 
sonority. 

Far  off  we  saw  another  tiny  light,  and  in  a  moment 
swept  by  another  boat  loaded  with  freight  coming  up 
against  the  stream.  Two  coolies,  a  man  and  a  woman, 
naked  to  the  waist,  pulled  it  by  a  chain  fastened  to 
the  wall  of  the  tunnel.  Twice  we  passed  loaded  boats 
going  down  with  the  current.  About  midway  a  nar- 
row shaft  from  the  top  of  the  mountain  supplies  the 
tunnel  with  air.  We  were  in  the  tunnel  only  twenty 
minutes,  but  it  seemed  hours.  We  were  on  the 
fabled  Styx,  bound  for  some  nether  world,  peopled 
with  Shades  like  ourselves,  Charon  at  the  oar,  Cer- 
berus before  us.  At  last,  far  off,  a  tiny  gleam  of  day- 
light, the  other  end,  more  welcome  than  any  daylight 
I  ever  saw.  The  candle  burned  out  as  we  struck  the 
light  as  though  it  were  timed  for  the  passage,  and  the 

[249] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

open  disclosed  a  wonderful  scene.  The  canal  there 
is  hung  on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  following  its 
windings,  far  above  a  green  valley,  and  crowded  with 
traflfic.  Huge  barges  pulled  by  coolies,  men  and 
women,  half-naked,  glistening  with  sweat,  trudged 
the  tow-path,  and  with  their  breasts  in  a  rope  pulled 
against  the  swift  current.  Passenger  boats  well 
filled  drawn  the  same  way.  Picnic  parties  gay  with 
kimonos  flashing  smiles  at  us  as  we  passed.  Patient 
fishermen  angling  without  apparent  results.  Vil- 
lages with  a  few  scattering  houses,  waving  bamboos, 
lotus  blooming  along  the  banks,  and  strange  wild- 
flowers  everywhere  on  the  slopes.  Above  us  the 
green-clad  hills,  far  off  across  the  valley,  other  hills 
melting  into  blue  haze  in  the  distance,  and  all  about 
us  the  sparkling,  multicolored,  busy  Japanese  life. 
Worth  crossing  the  sea  for,  that  trip  was,  the  most 
interesting,  I  think,  of  all  our  side  trips. 

Another  tunnel,  but  shorter  (the  first  is  over  a 
mile  in  length),  and  then  two  shorter  ones,  and  Kioto 
is  below  us,  and  far  off,  a  dim  streak  where  lies  the 
Bay  of  Kobe. 

It  takes  an  hour,  this  imique  trip,  and  simply  as 
an  engineering  marvel  it  is  worth  it. 

[250] 


JAPANESE  FISHERMAN. 


JAPA^N. 

We  shot  the  famous  rapids,  between  Kameoka  and 
Arashiyama,  one  of  the  most  picturesque  of  trips. 
We  wandered  through  more  temples,  saw  the  new 
palace  (no  great  sight),  and  the  Imperial  Gardens, 
till  our  four  days  were  gone,  like  a  dream,  and  it  was 
time  to  go. 

I  have  never  enjoyed  four  days  more,  for  no  city 
in  the  world  is  more  purely  characteristic  of  its  people, 
more  unspoiled  by  foreign  contact,  than  this  old  town. 
Its  "atmosphere"  is  all  Japan. 

We  had  intended  to  spend  a  day  at  Myanoshita,  a 
watering-place  between  Kioto  and  Yokohama,  but 
a  washout  on  the  railroad — ^how  familiar  that  sounded ! 
— necessitated  a  long  detour,  and  we  gave  it  up  and 
traveled  direct  to  Yokohama. 

A  RAILWAY  TRIP. 

The  Japanese  railways  are  practically  all  state- 
owned,  all  narrow-gauge,  and  fairly  well  built.  I 
say  fairly.  The  road-bed  is  good,  but  not  of  the  best. 
The  engines  are  all  of  English  make,  and  the  speed 
seldom  goes  above  thirty  miles  an  hour.  The  first- 
class  fare  is  straight  two  cents  a  mile,  third-class  as 
low  as  three-quarters  of  a  cent.    In  the  first-class 

[251] 


th;e  far  east  today. 

cars  the  seats  are  along  the  side.  There  are  good 
toilet  conveniences,  and  through  trains  carry  sleepers 
at  night  and  dining-cars  by  day.  The  sleepers  are 
patterned  after  our  narrow-gauge  Pullmans.  The 
dining-cars  serve  an  excellent  lunch  for  forty  cents 
gold,  and  dinner  for  sixty  cents.  Every  passenger 
pays  a  tax  to  the  Government  in  addition  to  his  fare, 
something  like  ten  cents  of  our  money  on  long  trips. 
The  stations  are  well  built,  and  the  courtesy  of  em- 
ployes leaves  nothing  to  be  wished  for.  You  may 
travel  from  end  to  end  of  Japan  without  knowing 
the  language,  for  always  there  is  some  one  around 
who  has  a  little  English. 

Among  our  fellow-passengers  were  a  charming 
Jewish  couple  just  married,  she  an  Englishwoman, 
who  had  gone  to  school  at  Lausanne  with  a  daughter 
of  Gardiner  Lathrop,  and  he  French,  eight  years  in 
the  wine  import  business  at  Yokohama,  speaking 
Japanese  like  a  native.  They  were  very  kind  to  us 
at  Yokohama,  and  I  got  from  him  another  side  of  the 
Japanese  business  character.  His  partner  is  a  native, 
and  Mr.  W.  told  me  that  among  themselves,  in  their 
business  dealings  with  each  other,  there  is  absolute 
honesty.    He  thinks  as  I  do,  that  their  dishonesty 

[  252  ] 


JAPAN. 

is  a  passing  phase  of  national  character  that  is  al- 
ready amending.     It  is  due  to  two  causes : 

Under  the  shogunate,  in  the  old  days,  the  highest 
class  was  the  soldier,  the  saumurai,  or  "two-sword 
men."  They  were  gentry,  petty  nobles,  entitled  to 
wear  two  swords.  Their  only  business  was  arms. 
The  next  in  rank  was  the  agricultural  class,  the  farm- 
ers; and  below  them  aU  the  merchants  or  traders. 
Each  class  was  fixed  by  heredity,  and  none  could  rise 
to  a  superior  class.  Traders  were  low  people,  very 
low,  and  the  taint  of  trade,  the  shame  of  their  em- 
ployment, made  them  dishonest.  It  is  less  than 
fifty  years  since  these  restrictions  were  removed,  and 
now  that  the  merchant  and  trading  class  are  the 
equals  of  every  one,  now  that  Japan  has  grown  demo- 
cratic and  trade  is  deemed  honorable  and  the  highest 
nobles  in  the  empire  engage  in  it,  a  change  is  coming 
swiftly. 

Besides  that,  the  old  system  of  Japan  was  largely 
communal.  Artisans  were  the  dependents  on  rich 
families.  They  did  not  work  for  hire.  Their  living 
was  assured.  It  was  thus,  assured  of  a  livelihood, 
with  no  care  for  the  future,  that  those  great  artists 
of  the  old  time  grew  up.     It  was  thus  that  they  con- 

[253] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

ceived  and  executed  those  marvels  of  patient  indus- 
try and  beautiful  form  that  are  the  admiration  and 
despair  of  modems. 

When  the  old  system  broke  down,  the  communal 
society  was  abandoned.  "\\Tien  men  began  to  work 
for  hire  and  sell  their  own  handiwork,  they  were  met 
with  an  invasion  from  the  outside  world  of  a  class 
unknown  to  them.  Most  of  the  earlier  traders  who 
came  there  were  adventurers  of  the  lowest  class,  and 
the  Japanese  quickly  found  that  he  was  cheated  at 
every  turn.  Nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  he, 
new  to  the  competitive  system,  should  conceive  that 
its  essence  was  dishonesty.  He  followed  the  example 
set  him  by  the  Occidentals  he  first  traded  with. 

Now  he  is  learning  differently.  Even  in  California, 
where  there  is  such  an  outcry  against  Japanese  dis- 
honesty, they  will  tell  you  that  there  are  many  ex- 
ceptions, many  Japanese  of  scrupulous  honesty ;  and 
the  number  is  increasing.  They  are  learning  the  les- 
son the  Chinese  learned  long  ago,  that  honesty  is 
best  in  business. 

Another  fellow- traveler  was  a  Japanese  colonel,  a 
powerfully  built,  swarthy  man,  dark  as  a  negro,  and 
one  of  the  most  military  figures  I  have  ever  seen. 

[254] 


JAPAN. 

But  the  pleasantest  part  of  the  trip  was  another 
acquaintance  we  made.  At  one  of  the  stations,  a 
junction  point  where  the  railroad  from  the  north  met 
ours,  there  was  a  crowd  of  officers  in  white  uniforms 
and  high-class  civil  officials  bidding  good-by  to  a 
native  in  plain  clothes.  It  was  evident  that  he  was 
a  person  of  importance,  with  his  servant  and  his  secre- 
tary. We  were  struck  with  the  profound  respect  that 
he  received  from  every  one — the  entire  crowd  stood 
at  salute  when  the  train  pulled  out — but  still  more 
with  his  marvelous  resemblance  to  a  well-known  Kan- 
san,  Gen.  Wilder  M.  The  same  height,  the  same 
erect  carriage,  the  same  square,  soldierly  figure, 
piercing  eye,  the  same  in  everj'thing,  features,  man- 
ner and  all,  except  that  our  Japanese  friend  has  more 
hair  than  the  General. 

A  fat  Shinto  priest  who  was  traveling  second-class 
came  in  to  see  him  and  bowed  to  the  ground.  At 
every  station  where  we  stopped  there  were  officers 
and  civilians  to  see  him,  and  all  bobbing  and  saluting. 
At  the  foot  of  Mt.  Fuji  we  made  his  acquaintance. 
As  we  approached  it,  there  are  three  peaks  almost 
alike,  and  we  were  puzzling  as  to  which  was  the 
sacred  mountain,  when  he  leaned  forward  and  told 

[255] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

us.  We  fell  into  conversation,  found  him  charm- 
ing, speaking  English  and  French  fluently,  and  talked 
for  two  hours  with  him  about  Japan,  its  past,  present 
and  future. 

That  he  was  a  great  official  we  divined,  that  he  was 
a  man  of  the  highest  intelligence  we  knew,  widely 
traveled  and  read,  familiar  with  all  the  courts  of 
Europe. 

The  next  day  I  asked  a  friend  in  Yokohama  for 
the  identity  of  our  traveling  companion.  I  de- 
scribed him,  and  he  said,  "You  have  met  Baron 
Hyashi,  the  second  man  of  the  Empire,  next  to  Ito." 
He  was  returning  from  Seoul,  where  he  had  been 
helping  Ito  settle  the  Korean  mess. 

We  had  entertained  an  angel  unawares.  Maybe, 
though,  if  I  had  known  how  great  a  man  he  was,  I 
should  have  been  too  awestruck  to  enjoy  his  company. 

By  the  way,  some  of  these  resemblances  of  ori- 
entals to  home  folks  are  queer.  For  instance,  I  found 
Fred  V.  in  Canton  cutting  up  fowls  in  a  butcher- 
shop.  I  knew  him  at  once  by  his  nose  and  his 
stomach.  And  Van  never  dissected  a  politician  or 
flayed  one  of  his  dislikes  with  greater  skill  than  his 
doppelganger   dismembered   that   chicken.     I  found 

[256] 


JAPAN. 

Judge  Frank  D.,  shaven  and  garbed  as  a  Buddhist 
priest,  beating  a  big  drum  in  a  temple  at  Nikko. 
The  priests  take  turns  an  hour  about  keeping  Buddha 
awake  with  a  kettle-drum.  The  resemblance  was 
exact.  I  wonder  if  there  is  not  something  in  phre- 
nology, nosology  and  the  like? 

Here  was  General  M.'s  alter  ego,  a  soldier »  Van, 
who  is  a  vivisectionist,  finds  his  double  in  the  same 
business  of  a  lower  kind.  And  how  thoroughly  apt 
that  Judge  D.'s  counterpart  should  be  a  Buddhist! 
The  Judge's  best  opinions  have  the  same  sublety, 
the  same  involutions,  refinements,  metaphysical  laby- 
rinths, the  same  finished  reasoning,  so  clear  that  it 
is  wholly  obscure  to  the  lay  mind,  as  an  essay  on  the 
Higher  Buddhism. 

A  daylight  ride  through  Japan  is  of  course  a  kaleido- 
scope of  the  strange  and  new.  A  railway  ride  through 
America  nowadays  reveals  merely  a  long  procession 
of  hideous,  gaudy  signs,  insulting  the  eye  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  beautiful  scenery.  The  glorious  Mohawk 
Valley  in  New  York  is  ruined  by  these  detestable 
evidences  of  enterprise.  If  I  were  lord  of  all  that  is, 
I  would  hang  every  man  who  attempts  to  put  up  a 

[257] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

sign  on  any  natural  object.  It  is  bad  enough  to  have 
them  on  a  store,  where  they  belong,  but  it  is  a  crime 
that  should  be  punished  without  benefit  of  clergy 
to  deface  God's  handiwork  with  ads.  for  tooth-wash, 
hams,  paint  and  the  like.  Japan,  unfortunately,  is 
beginning  to  imitate  us  in  this  as  in  many  other 
things  of  small  decency,  but  only  about  the  great 
cities  like  Tokio  and  Yokohama,  that  are  more  or 
less  Americanized. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  our  ride  through 
Japan  was  the  unending  row  of  bowed  backs,  mostly 
turned  from  us,  bobbing  away  at  their  tasks  in  the 
rice  -  fields  and  tea  -  gardens.  Those  innumerable 
sturdy  buttocks,  male  and  female,  each  with  a  hoe, 
never  rising  up  to  even  glance  at  our  train,  are  a 
distinctive  feature  of  Japan.  They  wear  great  coni- 
cal straw  hats,  two  feet  across,  and  as  a  further  pro- 
tection against  the  sun  a  sort  of  mat  of  straw  thatch 
hung  over  the  back. 

Every  farm-house  has  its  flowers.  The  wistaria 
bloom  is  past  and  the  chrysanthemums  have  not  yet 
come,  but  in  a  comer  of  every  little  rice-field  is  a 
great  bunch  of  lotus,  many-colored,  enormous  in  size. 

[258] 


JAPAN. 

No  matter  how  small  the  home,  there  must  be  some- 
where a  space  for  flowers. 

Abundant  rainfall  makes  Japan  very  green,  green 
as  the  Emerald  Isle,  and  gives  besides  innumerable 
small  streams,  waterfalls  and  lakes,  those  beauties 
that  only  abundant  water  lends  to  a  landscape. 

Rice  is  beautiful  growing,  but  a  tea  plantation 
makes  perhaps  as  fine  a  show  as  any  agricultural 
plant.  I  visited  the  largest  tea  plantation  in  Japan, 
near  Kioto,  and  for  the  first  time  learned  something 
about  tea  as  it  is  grown. 

I  remember  when  I  was  a  boy  that  my  father  al- 
ways drank  Young  Hyson,  and  I  used  to  wonder 
where  Old  Hyson  was,  and  how  Young  Hyson  hap- 
pened to  break  into  the  game  all  alone;  wondered  if 
Young  Hyson  would  be  Old  Hyson  when  Old  Hyson 
was  gone.  I  wondered  at  the  strange  hieroglyphics 
on  the  boxes  and  the  strange  exotic  flavors  that  came 
from  them,  and  little  thought  I  should  ever  go  where 
those  strange  boxes  came  from  and  see  Young  Hy- 
son at  home. 

Tea  is  an  evergreen  shrub  that  grows  from  three 
to  five  feet  high.  It  is  planted  in  rows,  and  at  a  little 
distance  looks  like  a  well-trimmed  box  hedge.     It 

[259] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

came  originally  from  Assam;  is,  I  believe,  a  kind  of 
wild  camellia,  but  has  been  domesticated  in  China 
and  Japan  for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  It  is 
even  more  widely  diffused  than  wheat,  for  it  grows 
from  Japan  clear  across  the  equator,  even  to  Aus- 
tralia. 

In  China,  black  tea  comes  from  the  south  and  green 
tea  from  the  north,  as  the  latter  is  hardy  while  the 
former  requires  a  moist,  warm  climate.  Japan  raises 
nothing  but  green  tea.  Brick  tea,  much  used  in 
central  Asia  and  Russia,  is  the  stems  and  broken 
leaves  pressed  into  brick  form. 

Black  tea  owes  its  color  to  the  fact  that  it  is  ex- 
posed to  the  air  before  it  is  roasted. 

There  are  four  processes  in  the  preparation  of  tea 
for  market.  It  is  first  wilted,  then  rolled  by  hand 
then  fermented,  and  finally  roasted  or  fired.  All 
are  delicate  processes,  requiring  considerable  skill. 
Green  tea  has  the  greater  fragrance  but  less  of  the 
thein. 

Young  Hyson  is  from  two  Chinese  words  that 
mean  "before  the  rains."  Oolong  means  "black 
dragon." 

The  tea  plant  must  be  three  j^ears  old  before  it 

[260] 


JAPAN. 

jrields.  After  that,  four  crops  a  year  are  taken  from 
it:  in  April,  May,  July,  and  September;  only  the 
new  leaves  being  picked.  The  yield  runs  from  three 
hundred  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  to  the 
acre.  So  there  you  are :  you  know  all  about  it  now 
— ^as  much  as  I  do,  any  way.  It  is  the  staple  drink 
of  more  millions  of  people  than  any  other  beverage 
in  the  world,  not  excepting  alcohol  in  all  its  forms. 

On  this  trip  we  were  for  four  hours  within  sight  of 
Fujiyama,  or  ''Jujisan,"  ''Mr.  Juji"  or  "Lord  Fuji" 
as  the  Japanese  call  it.  I  have  started  two  or  three 
times  to  describe  it,  and  each  time  shied  away  from 
it  because  it  is  beyond  my  power  or  the  power  of  any 
man  to  give  you  any  adequate  idea  of  this  most 
beautiful  of  the  world's  mountains.  So  old  globe- 
trotters agree.  I  had  thought  that  nothing  moun- 
tainous could  be  more  beautiful  than  the  Jungfrau 
from  Interlaken.  But  the  Jungfrau  owes  more  to 
its  setting  than  to  its  shape.  Fuji  needs  no  setting, 
no  staging,  though  in  fact  it  is  gloriously  set.  It  is 
the  sacred  mountain  of  Japan,  worshipped  and  pil- 
grimages made  to  it  by  thousands  every  August. 
It  is  a  volcano,  extinct  since  1707,  when  in  its  last 

[261] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

eruption  it  threw  ashes  into  Yeddo,  sixty  miles  away. 
It  is  twelve  thousand  feet  high,  with  a  shallow  crater, 
and  can  be  distinctly  seen  from  Yokohama  on  a 
clear  day,  so  much  does  it  tower  above  its  fellows. 

The  approach  to  it  from  the  west  by  rail  is  perfect. 
You  see  it  dimly  among  other  peaks,  then  lose  it  till 
suddenly  the  train  dashes  round  a  jut  of  rock,  we  are 
following  a  mountain  stream,  climbing  fast,  and  it 
bursts  upon  us  from  across  a  wide  valley,  where  the 
foreground  is  cultivated  fields,  melting  into  bamboo 
and  oak  forest  that  purple  into  indistinctness  at  the 
mountain's  foot,  twenty  miles  away. 

When  we  saw  it  first  it  was  perhaps  five  o'clock. 
The  sun  was  behind  us  and  lighting  dimly  the  moun- 
tain's western  face.  By  a  curious  atmospheric  trick 
the  middle  third  of  it  was  hidden  by  a  translucent 
opal-tinted  veil  of  mist,  and  from  out  this  the  great 
peak  soars,  as  if  it  were  swimming  in  a  sea  of  cloud, 
its  base  impalpable.  In  shape  it  is  a  regular  trun- 
cated cone,  with  three  little  notches  at  the  top. 
Regular,  I  say;  the  hand  of  man  could  not  make 
anything  more  regular,  more  perfect  than  it  appears 
at  this  distance.  There  are  no  near-by  mountains 
to  dwarf  it,  no  neighbors,  such  as  Pike's  Peak  and 

[  262  ] 


JAPAN. 

Mont  Blanc  have.  It  leaves  the  valley  at  perhaps 
four  thousand  feet  and  rises  clean  eight  thousand 
feet.  At  that  hour  the  lights  upon  it  were  almost 
unearthly  in  their  beauty.  I  have  never  seen  at- 
mospheric effects  like  it  among  the  moimtains.  There 
was  no  purple  haze  blurring  its  outlines.  It  stood 
out  above  this  opalescent  middle  belt,  as  clear-cut 
as  a  cameo,  and  seemed  of  heaven-reaching  height. 
For  two  hours  I  clung  to  my  window,  kneeling  on  my 
narrow  seat,  and  just  gloated  over  it  imtil  it  seemed 
not  a  real  mountain,  but  a  vision,  something  ethereal, 
the  spirit  of  a  mountain.  There  was  nothing  gross 
or  palpable,  but  all  shimmering  and  shining,  yet  al- 
ways clearly  cut,  perfect  in  outline,  in  color,  in  sur- 
roundings, an  ideal  mountain.  No  wonder  the  Jap- 
anese worship  it.  I  worshipped  it  as  long  as  it  was  in 
sight.  God  has  never  made  anything  more  beautiful, 
more  uplifting  to  the  human  soul,  than  that  great 
peak. 

At  Kodzu  we  must  change  cars  for  Yokohama. 
The  millennium  does  not  come  with  state  ownership 
of  railroads.  When  the  great  east-and-west  trunk 
line  of  the  Islands,  the  "Tokaido"  line  from  Tokio 

[263] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

to  Nagasaki  at  the  southwest  corner,  was  built,  there 
was  a  fuss  on  between  the  boss  of  the  railways  and 
the  Governor  of  Yokohama.  To  get  even,  the  railway 
boss  left  Yokohama  off  the  line  twelve  miles  and  ran 
a  branch  to  it.  So  the  greatest  seaport  of  the  islands 
was  left  off  this  main  stem  and  stuck  on  a  branch. 
There  is  another  main  line  running  north  from  Yo- 
kohama that  goes  through  Tokio,  which  is  fifty  min- 
utes ride  from  Yokohama. 

It  was  like  getting  back  home  again  to  enter  the 
Grand  at  Yokohama,  and  get  the  friendly  greeting 
of  my  Scotch  namesake  Smith,  who  runs  it,  and  every 
one  high  and  low  seemed  to  know  us  and  be  glad  to 
see  us. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  American  hotel  managers 
cannot  send  their  employes  to  Japan  for  a  few  months 
to  learn  how  guests  should  be  treated.  The  you- 
can-stay-or-get-out  air  of  America  is  not  thought  to 
be  the  proper  thing  here.  They  have  the  old-fash- 
ioned idea  that  also  prevails  in  Europe,  that  a  guest 
who  pays  his  money  is  something  to  be  desired,  to 
be  welcomed,  looked  after,  made  as  much  at  home  as 
possible.  Of  course  in  America  the  idea  is  quite 
different.    The  people  who  run  hotels  are  superior 

[264] 


JAPAN. 

beings.  To  be  allowed  to  associate  with  one  of  them 
is  a  privilege  vouchsafed  only  to  the  elect.  The  clerk 
is  a  Grand  Duke,  the  head  waiter  a  Count,  and  the 
bell-boys  insolent  young  ruffians  who  ought  to  be 
kicked  once  an  hour.  Undoubtedly  the  best  Amer- 
ican hotels  are  the  best  in  the  world.  They  are  also 
the  most  exorbitant.  I  can  travel  by  automobile 
through  the  fairest  parts  of  Europe,  over  roads  that 
are  better  than  our  best  city  pavements,  through 
scenes  replete  with  every  interest,  pay  all  bills,  in- 
cluding the  hire  of  the  automobile,  for  less  money 
than  I  can  stay  at  a  first-class  hotel  in  any  of  our 
great  cities. 

No  wonder  foreigners  rave  at  the  expense  of  trav- 
eling in  America.  It  is  frightful.  It  is  not  alone  the 
comfort,  the  luxury  of  these  great  hostelries, — it  is 
the  insensate,  vulgar  ostentation  and  display  for 
which  we  pay  with  a  big  profit  added.  What  sensi- 
ble man  cares  for  onyx  and  gold  in  the  lobby  where 
he  sits  occasionally,  or  through  which  he  walks  only 
two  or  three  times  a  day?  What  can  be  more  vulgar, 
for  instance,  than  a  hotel  like  the  Waldorf  in  New 
York? — not  even  good  taste;  just  lavish  display  of 
the  tawdriest  kind.    I  do  not  believe  the  better  class 

[265] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

of  Americans  care  for  it.  I  know  an  old  hotel  in  New 
York  that  has  never  been  done  over.  Its  lobby  is  in 
plain  oak,  its  furniture  fine,  yet  not  gaudy,  but  its 
kitchen  is  famous  on  two  continents.  It  holds  a 
trade  that  is  all  the  best,  makes  money,  and  you  can 
stay  there  for  half  you  are  cheated  out  of  at  those 
circus-wagon  hotels  farther  uptown. 

We  did  not  go  to  Tokio  to  stay.  It  is  the  most 
exasperating  town  imaginable  to  get  about  in.  Talk 
of  the  magnificent  distances  of  Washington — ^Tokio 
has  it  beaten  four  ways.  Fancy  two  million  people 
spread  out  in  houses  of  not  to  exceed  two  stories  high, 
and  you  will  get  an  idea  of  the  superficial  area  of  this 
capital.  I  don't  know  how  many  hundred  square 
miles  it  covers,  but  I  know  it  takes  from  one  to  two 
hours  in  a  rickshaw  to  get  anywhere.  No  matter 
where  you  stop,  the  points  of  interest  are  so  scattered 
that  you  are  half  your  time  riding. 

The  streets  are  much  like  those  of  Kioto,  but  more 
foreign,  more  foreigners  on  the  street,  for  it  is  so  near 
Yokohama  that  every  one  who  stops  even  for  a  day 
there  goes  to  Tokio,  and  you  are  constantly  meeting 
foreigners.  It  has  none  of  the  charm  of  Kioto, 
except  in  spots  that  are  far  apart. 

[266] 


I 


JAPAN. 

F.  had  heard  of  "culture  pearls,"  so  we  had  to  go 
there  first.  I  believe  the  pearl  oyster  secretes  the 
pearl  to  cover  some  irritating  substance  that  has 
found  its  way  into  the  shell  and  wounds  and  annoys 
its  muscular  tissue.  So  an  ingenious  Jap  has  learned 
to  produce  them  artificially.  He  takes  his  oyster, 
makes  a  little  incision  in  the  muscular  tissue  and  in- 
serts a  tiny  piece  of  glass.  The  oyster  proceeds  to 
cover  it,  and  produces  a  real  pearl.  It  is  not  an  im- 
itation; it  is  a  real  pearl,  but  only  half  a  pearl.  Cu- 
riously enough,  so  far,  though  he  has  been  at  it  for 
twenty  years,  he  has  never  been  able  to  produce  a 
true  round  pearl.  They  are  flat  on  one  side,  but  the 
round  side  has  all  the  lustre  and  sheen  of  the  natural 
pearl.  They  do  admirably  for  rings,  shirt-stud  set- 
tings and  the  like,  and  sell  for  about  a  fifth  of  the  price 
of  the  same  size  produced  naturally.  The  Govern- 
ment, which  fosters  everything  here,  pays  him  a  yearly 
subsidy  and  gives  him  a  breeding-ground  for  his  oys- 
ters at  Shimoneseki. 

To  have  secured  permission  to  see  the  palace  of 
the  Mikado  would  have  required  a  two-hours  trip 
to  the  American  legation,  a  long  wait,  and  then  more 
ceremonies ;  and  I  gave  it  up.    We  saw  the  Imperial 

[267] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Gardens  and  others  of  the  nobility,  but  did  not  ad- 
mire them.  It  is  all  artificial,  diminutive,  conven- 
tional, without  a  touch  of  nature.  In  none  of  the 
gardens  and  in  none  of  the  public  parks  is  there  any 
grass.  Somehow  the  idea  of  a  lawn  has  never  pen- 
etrated the  oriental  mind.  They  don't  know  how 
beautiful  a  bluegrass  lawn  can  be — more  beautiful, 
to  my  mind,  than  all  the  formal  gardens  in  the  world. 
F.  has  heard  of  some  ivory  carvings  and  some  things 
that  she  had  not  priced  yet,  and  so  I  left  her  at  her 
favorite  pursuit  and  went  alone  to  Nikko. 


NIKKO. 

This  famous  old  temple  city  of  Japan  lies  well  up 
in  the  northern  part,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
from  Tokio.  It  was  a  Sunday  when  I  started,  an 
excursion  day,  and  the  train  was  crowded  with  for- 
eigners mostly  going  to  the  watering-places  that 
line  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  hills  this  side  of  Nikko. 
At  a  junction  point  most  of  them  left,  and  I  had  the 
car  nearly  to  myself. 

As  you  go  north  from  Tokio  the  country  grows 
wilder,  less  cultivated.  There  are  wide  areas,  level 
enough,  where  nothing  grows  but  scrub  pine  and  oak. 

[  268  ] 


JAPAN. 

Whether  it  can  be  cultivated  or  not  I  do  not  know, 
but  certainly  that  part  is  not  thickly  settled;  in 
fact,  near  Nikko  it  is  the  reverse.  I  have  said  much 
about  Japanese  agriculture,  but  whether  it  is  to  be 
praised  or  not  remains  a  question  in  my  mind.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  minute,  for  average  holdings  do  not  ex- 
ceed an  acre.  Japanese  authorities  say  that  it  is 
unscientific,  old-fashioned,  and  that  much  can  be 
done,  is  being  done,  to  improve  its  methods.  For 
instance,  only  twelve  per  cent  of  all  Japan  is  in  culti- 
vation. Some  writers,  assuming  that  Japan  re- 
sembles other  countries,  where  on  the  average  forty- 
eight  per  cent  is  tillable,  say  that  Japan  does  not 
make  the  most  of  her  natural  resources.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Japan  is  a  series  of  islands 
of  volcanic  origin,  with  but  a  small  percentage  of 
level  land.  Still,  it  is  true  that  I  saw  miles  of  country 
that  in  Belgium  or  France  would  be  raising  trees,  if 
nothing  else.  In  Switzerland,  regions  far  more  in- 
hospitable produce  great  crops.  Japan  seems  to 
have  no  forestry.  Bamboo  is  the  only  tree  that  is 
planted.  Instead  of  clothing  these  hiUs  and  waste 
places  with  pine,  she  imports  her  timber  from  Amer- 

[269] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

ica,  and  now  from  Manchuria,  and  does  nothing  with 
her  waste  places. 

Certainly  Japan  is  poor  enough  to  use  every  re- 
source, the  poorest  country  in  the  world.  She  has 
practically  nothing  but  agriculture  and  fisheries  to 
depend  upon.  The  Government  is  making  stren- 
uous efforts  by  subventions  to  build  up  manufactures 
and  shipping  with  some  success,  but  she  has  no  miner- 
als to  speak  of.  A  little  copper,  some  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Nikko.  Some  poor  steaming  coal.  No 
iron,  silver  or  gold.  The  Nippon  Ginko,  the  national 
bank  of  Japan,  gave  out  a  statement  in  January 
showing  the  national  resources.  Surely  this  insti- 
tution would  not  belittle  the  wealth  of  the  country, 
and  here  are  the  figures,  startling  enough.  It  places 
the  national  wealth  of  Japan,  all  told,  at  less  than  six 
billion  dollars.  Contrast  that  with  our  more  than  a 
hundred  billion.  The  average  annual  revenue  per 
capita  is  placed  at  S15,  out  of  which  they  pay  two 
dollars  a  year  in  taxes,  leaving  a  net  income  for  each 
man,  woman  and  child  per  annimi  to  live  on,  of  $13. 
Even  this  is  exaggerated,  because  it  is  based  on  an 
estimate  of  twelve  per  cent  return  on  its  capital, 
which  can  hardly  be  reached.    The  balance  of  trade 

[270] 


THUNDER  GOD,  SHINTO  TEMPLE. 


JAPAN. 

against  Japan  last  year  was  fifteen  millions.  The 
total  agricultural  product  of  all  Japan  last  year 
with  its  forty-eight  million  people  was  less  that  than 
of  Kansas — less,  in  fact,  than  the  egg  crop  of  the 
United  States  alone. 

But  think  of  an  average  annual  income,  net,  of 
thirteen  dollars  a  head! 

You  may  if  you  are  credulous  believe  that  Japan 
intends  to  go  to  war  with  America,  but  personally, 
I  believe  the  men  who  nm  Japan  have  too  much  sense. 
She  could  not  carry  on  another  war  for  a  single  month. 
The  last  one  cost  her  $1,700,000,000.  She  was  at 
the  point  of  exhaustion  when  peace  was  declared, 
exhaustion  not  only  of  money,  but  of  men.  The 
draft  that  was  going  forward  when  the  war  closed 
was  what  is  known  as  the  "eighth  line,"  the  last,  in 
fact,  for  it  was  boys  of  eighteen  and  men  of  forty- 
five. 

She  cannot  make  another  loan,  for  every  resource 
is  mortgaged  now.  But  for  the  indemnity  of  fifty 
millions  that  came  from  Russia  there  would  have 
been  a  deficit  this  year. 

She  is  at  the  end  of  her  resources,  for  it  takes  the 
purse  now  to  do  the  fighting.    Most  of  her  guns  and 

[271] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

war  material  must  be  renewed  before  another  war. 
More  than  that,  she  has  her  hands  full  in  assimi- 
lating Korea,  a  task  that  will  take  years. 

I  could  give  other  figures  that  would  show  the 
poverty  of  this  people,  but  these  suffice.  Nothing 
but  a  patriotism  that  is  fanatic,  a  courage  that  is 
desperate,  would  have  carried  her  as  far  as  she  has 
gone. 

She  staked  her  last  dollar  in  the  war  with  Russia, 
in  the  hope  of  getting  Manchuria  as  an  outlet  for  her 
surplus  population,  and  failed.  True,  she  has  Korea, 
a  rich  country,  richer  than  Japan,  and  with  that  she 
must  be  content  till  she  mends  her  finances,  which 
will  take  years.  She  makes  a  bluff  that  she  is  launch- 
ing new  battleships.  They  are  simply  the  old  Rus- 
sian ships  patched  up. 

As  one  approaches  Nikko  by  rail  the  first  of  its 
beauties  is  the  great  avenue  of  ciyptomeria,  a  giant 
cedar  that  grows  like  a  pine,  straight  and  tall.  This 
avenue,  planted  on  each  side  the  "Pilgrims'  road," 
leading  to  the  shrines  of  Nikko,  is  more  than  three 
hundred  years  old.  The  great  cedars  wiU  average 
three  feet  through  and  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high, 

[272] 


CRYPTOMERIA  ROAD. 


JAPAN. 

and  were  set  so  closely  that  now  they  almost  touch. 
The  long  dim  avenue  is  like  a  cathedral  isle,  with  the 
brown  trunks  splashed  with  green  moss  rising  sixty 
feet  without  a  limb,  each  straight  and  perfect,  and 
the  burst  of  feathery  foliage  that  meets  above,  the 
half-twilight,  and  the  stone  road  worn  by  pious  feet 
that  tells  of  its  age-old  travel. 

So  far  in  this  wandering  narrative  I  have  not  used 
the  guide-book  much,  but  at  Nikko,  the  Nikko  Hotel 
has  compiled  a  guide-book  of  the  sights  of  the  vicin- 
ity that  is  so  naive  and  refreshing  that  I  am  tempted 
to  draw  upon  it  just  a  little.  For  instance,  I  am 
told  of  the  wonderful  sacred  bridge  "over  which  no 
one  are  allowed  to  pass."  "For  person  pressed  for 
time  may  ride  down"  the  cryptomeria  avenue  and 
take  the  railroad  below.  "This  excursion  are  mostly 
on  flat,  and  therefore  no  afraidness  shall  be  experi- 
enced." "It  may  easily  go  up  and  back  same  day," 
where  "a  good,  splendid  view  can  be  attained." 
"This  is  the  easy  most  pleasantest  way  to  ascent  and 
there  can  find  the  good  hotel  accomodation."  Eng- 
lish as  she  is  written  in  Japan. 

But  Nikko  needs  no  guide-book.  You  may  miss 
part  of  it,  but  you  will  see  enough  anyway.    There 

[273J 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

is  plenty  to  keep  you  busy  if  you  stay  a  week  or  a 
month,  for  this  is  the  heart  of  country  Japan,  where 
the  old  ways  linger  and  progress  has  not  come  to  blight 
the  old  quaintness. 

Nikko,  like  Manitou,  lies  along  a  narrow  gorge  in 
the  mountains,  down  which  tumbles  and  foams  and 
babbles  a  clear  mountain  stream.  It  is  just  a  long 
street  lined  on  each  side  with  one-story  buildings, 
shop  in  front,  hving-room  in  the  rear,  and  each  with 
a  Uttle  garden  behind.  The  shop-fronts  are  all 
open,  and  you  may  look  through  and  into  the  living- 
room  and  through  that  into  the  gardens,  where  the 
five  o'clock  bath  is  going  on.  At  five  o'clock  every 
one  in  Old  Japan  takes  a  hot  bath  in  the  back  yard. 
Neighbor  gossips  to  neighbor  across  the  line.  If  a 
customer  comes  into  the  shop,  the  man  wraps  a 
towel  around  his  loins  and  comes  in  to  wait  on  him. 
It  is  somewhat  startling  at  first  to  see  the  mother  of 
a  family  emerge  from  a  tub  and  coolly  dry  herself 
in  plain  view  from  the  street,  and  girls  in  the  cos- 
tume of  Eve  before  the  Fall  chase  each  other  across 
the  tiny  yards.  Of  course  I  blushed  a  proper  Ameri- 
can blush  and  turned  my  face  the  other  way,  but  it 
was  just  the  same  on  the  other  side,  and  the  street 

[274] 


JAPAN. 

was  unfortunately  so  narrow  that  I  could  not  quite 
confine  my  eyes  to  it.  That  I  did  not,  this  chronicle 
confesses,  but  it  was  all  very  innocent,  and  none  of 
them  realized  for  a  moment  how  shocking  it  was, 
therefore  I  ceased  to  be  shocked,  if  I  ever  was. 

At  the  head  of  the  street  another  gorge  comes  in, 
up  which  half  a  mile  lies  my  hotel,  the  Nikko  Hotel, 
and  just  there  is  the  "sacred  bridge,"  some  fifty  feet 
long,  all  of  priceless  red  lacquer,  across  which  none 
but  the  Imperial  family  may  pass.  When  you  pay 
ten  dollars  for  a  red  lacquer  tray  you  may  fancy  what 
this  bridge  is  worth  nowadays. 

A  tiny  tramway  runs  along  the  stream,  coming 
from  a  copper  mine  farther  up,  and  a  huge  bullock 
with  a  tent  of  thatch  over  his  back  to  keep  off  the 
sun,  paces  statelily  along,  drawing  a  little  car,  loaded, 
not  with  copper,  but  with  girls  just  back  from  a 
picnic  somewhere  in  the  hUls. 

As  F.  is  not  with  me  I  fear  I  neglected  the  shops. 
There  are  several  things  I  did  not  price  that  first 
evening,  though  I  had  nothing  else  to  do.  But  it  is 
a  famous  place  for  furs.  The  sable,  the  marten,  the 
silver  fox  and  dozens  of  others  are  brought  there 
from  the  far  north  of  the  Islands,  and  even  from 

[275] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Saghalien,  to  be  prepared  by  these  skilled  fur-workers. 
Beautiful  leopard  and  tiger  skins,  unplucked  seal 
tanned  in  its  natural  state,  fur  slippers  and  gloves, 
fur  robes  and  coats,  every  kind  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful fur  that  the  frozen  north  can  produce,  are  shown 
here, — and  shamefully  cheap.  I  was  glad  F.  was  not 
along,  for  even  to  me  the  prices  were  just  resistible, 
no  more. 

Nikko  is  the  Rome,  the  Holy  City  of  Japan.  "VMiat 
started  it  I  don't  know,  but  it  has  more  temples  than 
any  other  city  in  Japan,  ten  times  over.  The  piety 
and  wealth  of  succeeding  shogims  and  emperors  have 
lavished  here  the  art  and  skill  of  each  age  for  five 
hundred  years. 

I  thought  by  stopping  at  the  Nikko  Hotel,  which 
lies  on  the  same  side  as  the  temples,  I  should  have 
an  easy  time  sight-seeing.  I  had  no  reason  to  re- 
gret my  choice,  for  the  Nikko  is  charming,  but  there 
is  no  royal  road  for  sight-seers.  When  I  started  out 
in  the  morning  the  hotel  sent  a  guide  with  me  whose 
English  was  fully  as  picturesque  as  the  guide-book. 
I  found  afterw'ards  he  was  a  student  and  was  just 
practicing  on  me.  Trying  his  English  on  a  dog,  as 
it  were.    There  are  over  a  hundred  temples,  Bud- 

[276] 


JAPAN. 

dhist  and  Shinto  both,  indiscriminately  placed,  for 
these  religions  have  lived  tolerantly  side  by  side  for 
three  hundred  years,  ever  since  leyasu  taught  the 
Buddhists  that  bloody  lesson ;  but  the  Buddhist  faith 
has  declined  and  Shinto  is  now  the  national  religion. 

But  the  Buddhist  temples  here  are  beautifully 
kept  up,  as  many  of  them  were  selected  as  tombs  by 
the  Shoguns,  since  leyasu's  time,  and  are  abun- 
dantly endowed.  Constant  repairs  are  going  on.  The 
exteriors  are  regilt  and  furbished  up,  and  there  is  no 
decay,  no  ruins. 

The  temples  are  all  of  wood,  of  the  same  general 
pattern,  rectangular,  one-story,  with  steep  roofs  and 
projecting  eaves,  laid  on  heavy  beams,  elaborately 
carved  and  gilded,  and  the  facades  adorned  with  wood 
carvings,  colored  and  plain. 

It  is  here  one  sees  the  famous  three  monkeys, 
"see  no  evil,  hear  none,  speak  none,"  with  their  hands 
respectively  on  eyes,  ears,  and  lips. 

The  wood  carvings  are  mainly  of  great  merit.  One 
temple-front  is  all  elephants,  another  all  cats,  another 
lions;  that  is,  the  Japanese  idea  of  lion,  really  a  big 
pug-nosed  dog  with  bulging  eyes. 

The  interiors  of  both  Buddhist  and  Shint    temples 

[277] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

are  much  the  same.  Outside  is  a  wide  platform, 
the  fronts  all  open,  closed  at  night  by  sliding  doors. 
Within  it  is  a  vast  expanse  of  red  lacquer  floor,  walls 
covered  with  gold  lacquer,  hideous  idols,  incense 
burning,  gold  shrines  filled  with  incomprehensible 
figures,  all  the  paraphernalia  of  a  barbaric  yet  so- 
phisticated worship. 

When  you  reach  the  steps  of  the  temple,  felt  shoes 
are  pulled  on  your  feet,  for  these  priceless  floors  are 
not  to  be  marred  by  boot-heels.  A  half-grown  boy 
marks  you  for  his  own,  and  takes  you  through  room 
after  room  filled  with  art  treasures  left  by  various 
deceased  dignitaries.  He  singsongs  his  explanations 
and  the  guide  interprets.  Every  temple  has  a  special 
room  for  the  Emperor  and  another  for  the  princes. 
There  are  curious  paintings,  mostly  in  sepia,  that 
look  as  if  they  belonged  to  the  impressionist  school, 
for  it  is  impossible  to  tell  what  they  are  about. 
Buddhist  priests  beat  the  big  drum  to  keep  Buddha 
awake  and  'tending  to  business;  he  is  a  very  sleepy- 
looking  prophet  at  the  best.  They  intone  long  pray- 
ers in  a  nasal  singsong,  bum  cords  of  incense,  and 
scribble  endless  copies  of  endless  writings  on  a  paper 
that  looks  like  parchment,  and  sell  them  to  believers. 

[278] 


JAPAN. 

Outside  in  the  temple  yards  are  shops  where  they 
sell  charms  against  disease,  written  prayers,  and  postal 
cards.  Think  of  the  juxtaposition ;  but  no  one  seems 
to  think  it  irreverent,  because  there  is  no  real  rever- 
ence. As  a  matter  of  fact,  Japan  has  no  religion 
that  is  worthy  of  the  name.  There  is  Ancestor 
Worship,  a  family  spiritualism,  a  superstition  just 
a  step  above  the  lowest  religions  the  most  barbaric 
tribes  of  the  world  acknowledge.  But  there  is  no 
concept  of  a  Supreme  Being,  an  Allwise  Power, 
beneficent,  creative,  constructive,  and  omniscient. 
It  is  a  jumble  of  half-beliefs,  superstitions,  vague, 
childish,  the  very  infancy  of  religious  thought.  The 
higher  class  Japanese  have  no  religion,  the  lower 
class  merely  a  superstition. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war. 
Marquis  Ito  seriously  proposed  that  the  Japanese 
should  en  masse  embrace  Christianity,  in  order  to 
secure  the  sympathy  of  the  Christian  powers.  He 
feared  that  they  would  sympathize  with  Russia,  be- 
cause of  Japan's  religion,  or  lack  of  it. 

It  was  seriously  considered  by  the  Council  of  Elder 
Statesmen,  of  whom  Ito  is  the  head,  and  there  is  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  if  the  Emperor  had  so  de- 

[279] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

creed  Japan  would  have  accepted  Christianity  with- 
out hesitation. 

As  it  is,  the  missionaries  are  making  far  more  head- 
way in  Japan  than  they  are  in  China.  We  met  many 
converted  Japanese.  Certainly  anything  would  be 
better  than  their  present  jumble  of  myths  and  super- 
stitions. The  Japanese  are  getting  too  wise,  too 
modern,  to  worship  a  two-headed  war  god  that  they 
make  themselves  in  a  near-by  shop.  Ancestor  wor- 
ship will  remain,  but  Japan  will  be  Christianized 
within  a  hundred  years  very  completely. 

Christianity  holds  out  to  these  people  something 
that  no  other  religion  offers,  something  that  no  other 
religion  or  cult  has  ever  thought  of, — pardon  for  sin. 
It  has  been  a  matter  of  speculation  with  modem 
writers  for  many  years  why  the  pagan  world  accepted 
Christianity  so  quickly,  so  readily;  why  a  religion 
that  in  its  higher  thought  is  so  much  above  all  bar- 
barian conceptions  should  have  so  instantly  appealed 
to  the  barbarian  world,  such  as  was  Rome  in  the  first 
century.  I  think  the  answer  is  not  hard,  although 
I  have  never  heard  it  given  by  anyone.  The  essence 
of  Christianity  is  that  it  is  a  pardon. 

In  every  barbaric  religion,  from  the  earliest  ages 

[280] 


JAPAN. 

down  to  the  worship  of  the  present-day  Japanese, 
there  is  no  pardon  for  sin.  Sin  brings  its  inevitable 
punishment  in  this  world  or  the  next.  The  pagans  in 
Christ's  day  believed  that  Nemesis  and  the  Eumen- 
ides  were  always  at  hand  to  punish  transgression. 
There  was  no  escape.  There  was  certain  punish- 
ment, retribution  both  in  this  world  and  the  next. 
Christ  came  with  a  pardon.  Belief  in  him  meant  not 
simply  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  but  its  abolition.  The 
washing  away  not  only  of  the  consequence  of  sin,  its 
punishment,  but  even  of  the  sin  itself. 

In  our  modem  revivals,  the  first  aim  of  the  evangel- 
ist is  to  get  his  hearers  "convicted  of  sin,"  to  feel  and 
realize  that  they  are  sinners  and  that  pardon  is  just 
there  waiting  for  them. 

I  fancy  if  one  entered  a  penitentiary  with  a  pardon 
for  every  inmate  who  could  conscientiously  beUeve 
in  any  one  doctrine,  belief  would  be  immediate  and 
general.  That  is  what  Christianity  does.  It  finds  a 
sinful  world  peopled  with  sinners,  full  of  sin,  and  ex- 
tends to  every  sinner  a  pardon  on  very  simple  terms. 
The  only  wonder  is  that  real  Christians  are  so  few. 
If  every  one  sincerely  believed  in  a  future  state,  every 
ne   would   be   a  Christian.    That   is   indisputable. 

[281] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

Given  a  people  that  do  sincerely  believe  in  a  future 
state  as  do  the  Japanese,  a  people  that  know  they  are 
sinners,  a  people  who  have  always  believed  that  the 
punishment  of  sin  was  inevitable,  and  extend  to  them 
the  pardon  of  Christianity,  and  it  is  bound  to  appeal 
to  them. 

The  reason  that  our  churches  are  not  filled  is  the 
fact  that  we  do  not  many  of  us  have  a  sincere,  pro- 
found belief  in  a  future  state.  These  people  have. 
They  feel  their  condemnation  for  sin,  they  feel  the 
emptiness  of  their  religious  rites  and  superstitions, 
and  Christianity  appeals  to  them. 

It  follows  that  about  these  old  temples  hangs  none 
of  the  awe  and  uplift  that  a  great  English  or  Italian 
cathedral  gives  to  even  the  most  thoughtless  and 
irreverent.  The  bizarre  decorations,  the  fantastic 
shrines,  the  monstrous  gods  of  human  handiwork, 
produce  nothing  but  a  feeling  of  curiosity.  The 
Japanese  themselves  wander  through  these  fanes, 
deserted  by  worshippers,  chattering  and  laughing, 
staring  and  commenting,  but  without  an  atom  of 
religious  feeling.  It  is  just  a  show,  like  a  fair  with  its 
merry-go-rounds  and  shoot  the  chutes. 

There  is  one  place,  however,  where  the  thoughtful 
[  282  ] 


JAPAN. 

may  well  bare  their  heads  and  pause  a  while  in  the 
contemplation  of  greatness  brought  low.  On  the 
highest  point  of  one  of  these  great  hills,  reached  by- 
many  hundred  stone  steps,  winding  and  zigzagging 
between  the  giant  cryptomeria  guarded  by  heavily 
carven  stone  balustrades,  the  work  of  a  long-past 
age  and  green  now  with  centuries  of  moss,  stands 
the  great  bronze  tomb  of  leyasu,  the  founder  of 
Japan.  It  stands  behind  a  rather  simple  Buddhist 
temple,  the  faith  he  professed,  just  a  dome  of  the  old 
bronze  with  two  storks  guarding  it  in  front.  No 
ornament,  no  decoration,  just  the  simple,  simiptuous 
old  bronze.  From  there  you  may  look  out  across  the 
green  landscape  far  down  the  winding  valley,  to  the 
Japan  he  loved  and  served.  No  tomb  I  have  ever 
seen,  not  even  that  of  Napoleon,  is  more  impressive.  It 
strikes  you  by  its  very  simplicity,  the  simplicity  that 
marked  his  great  character,  for  in  all  his  life  he  sought 
but  one  end,  the  unity  and  prosperity  of  Japan.  He 
bent  everything  to  that  end,  and  attained  his  end 
by  this  very  singleness  of  purpose. 

Nikko  is  an  alpine  country;   far  up  in  the  moun- 
tains and  all  about  it  is  wild  and  beautiful  scenery, 

[283j 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

lakes  and  waterfalls  and  gorges.  But  why  attempt 
to  describe  them?  There  is  already  too  much  scenery 
in  these  chapters,  and  the  scenery  of  Nikko  does  not 
differ  from  the  beauties  of  nature  elsewhere  at  this 
season.  They  say  that  in  the  spring,  when  the 
wistaria  and  the  azalea  which  cover  all  the  hillsides 
are  in  bloom,  and  again  in  autumn  when  the  maples 
put  forth  their  glory  of  red  and  gold,  that  then  it  is  a 
riot  of  beauty. 

Certainly  it  was  beautiful  in  the  heart  of  summer, 
with  none  of  these  attractions.  It  is  a  dreamy,  quiet, 
peaceful  old  place.  A  place  to  bask  and  loaf,  "the 
world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot." 

Its  greatest  charm  is  that  of  Kioto,  that  it  is  still 
Japanese.  That  here  you  savor  the  old  coimtry  life 
of  Japan  just  as  it  was  before  the  western  invasion. 
It  is  the  Japan  that  Lafcadio  Hearn  and  Sir  Edwin 
Arnold  loved  and  wrote  of. 

The  average  traveler  through  Japan  takes  a  hasty 
glimpse  of  the  coast  towns,  perhaps  sees  Tokio,  and 
goes  away  with  but  little  idea  of  the  real  Japan.  I 
am  glad  I  have  seen  it  before  it  passes  away,  as  it 
will.  The  tourists  are  coming  in  greater  numbers 
every  year.    Their   blighting    hand  is  already   on 

[284] 


JAPAN. 

Nikko,  and  the  Americans  are  the  worst  of  all.  I 
have  made  it  a  rule  abroad  to  avoid  all  those  hotels 
"where  all  the  Americans  go."  They  quickly  and 
completely  spoil  every  hotel  they  patronize.  The 
average  American  abroad  spends  his  money  like  a 
drunken  sailor.  He  gives  the  same  extravagant 
tips  as  at  home,  demands  the  same  kind  of  hotels  he 
gets  at  home,  and  as  far  as  possible  keeps  away  from 
those  hotels  that  are  characteristic  of  the  country  he 
is  in. 

You  will  observe  that  I  regard  the  average  American 
as  a  poor  traveler.  He  goes  abroad  mainly  to  say 
he  has  been.  He  might  as  weU  stay  at  home  and 
study  a  guide-book,  so  far  as  really  seeing  the  coun- 
try is  concerned. 

I  made  several  excursions  to  near-by  waterfalls 
and  lakes,  always  in  a  rickshaw,  and  found  most  of 
the  roads  good,  none  bad.  Above  all,  I  reveled  in 
the  country  life  of  Old  Japan.  I  can  recommend 
Japan  to  sated  and  world-weary  travelers  for  many 
reasons,  but  above  all  for  this  one,  that  it  is  always 
picturesque,  always  novel,  many-colored,  quaint  and 
attractive.  Somehow  it  does  not  weary  you  as  do 
most  foreign  lands.    I  have  spent  as  dull  moments 

[285] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

on  the  Rhine  as  I  ever  did  on  the  Santa  Fe,  and  much 
of  Europe  is  dull  and  uninteresting.  I  did  not  find 
a  foot  of  Japan  so.  I  should  think  it  would  set  a 
painter  crazy  with  its  wealth  of  color,  its  picturesque 
outlines,  and  he  would  need  no  paid  models  to  study 
the  nude.  Maybe  I  have  talked  too  much  about  the 
nakedness  of  Japan,  but  really  it  is  one  of  those  char- 
acteristic things  that  impress  you.  I  have  heard  one 
or  two  funny  stories  about  this  phase. 

Near  Mogi,  on  the  Inland  Sea,  is  a  summer  resort 
much  frequented  by  Japanese  for  its  bathing.  A  great 
pool  is  made  by  a  reef  that  incloses  a  part  of  the  bay. 
Here  men  and  women  bathed  together  without  the 
incumbrance  of  bathing-dresses  for  years.  Finally 
Occidental  ideas  made  themselves  felt,  and  the  au- 
thorities decreed  that  men  and  women  should  not 
bathe  together  without  clothing.  This  was  a  sump- 
tuary law,  invading  individual  rights,  and  did  not 
commend  itself  to  the  bathers,  but  they  got  around 
it  all  right.  A  rope  was  stretched  across  the  pool 
and  the  men  bathed  on  one  side  the  rope,  the  women 
on  the  other. 

Then  there  was  the  bathing-master  who  was  in  the 
habit  of  stripping  off  when  he  went  in  the  water. 

[286] 


JAPAN. 

The  authorities  forbade  it,  and  after  that  he  placidly 
exchanged  his  shore  clothes  for  a  bathing-suit  on  the 
beach  in  full  view  of  everybody.  The  Japanese  are 
very  literal. 

A  friend  of  mine  who  was  visiting  a  Japanese 
merchant  at  the  latter's  country  home  was  consider- 
ably shocked  when  he  found  the  whole  family  join 
him  in  his  bath  in  the  stream  that  flowed  through 
the  garden,  "in  the  altogether." 

Of  course  much  of  this  is  changing.  They  are 
acquiring  Western  prudery.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  account 
for  their  unblushing  display.  In  tropical  climates 
one  expects  it,  but  the  climate  of  Japan  is  much  like 
that  of  Kansas.  Doubtless  it  accounts  partly  for 
the  superb  health  of  these  people.  They  are  hard- 
ened by  their  constant  exposure  in  scanty  clothing. 

I  left  Nikko  quite  unsatisfied  with  its  beauty,  hun- 
gry for  more.  Some  day  I  shall  go  back.  How 
often  we  say  that!  The  first  time  I  went  to  Florida 
I  declined  an  invitation  for  a  trip  up  the  celebrated 
Wekiva  river,  because  I  was  coming  back  that  fall. 
I  was  never  in  the  neighborhood  again,  and  never 
took  the  trip.    New  scenes  beckon  us  when  we  make 

[287] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

another  trip,  and  the  things  we  give  up  because  we 
are  coming  again  are  never  seen. 

We  made  one  side  trip  at  Yokohama  to  Kamakura, 
ten  miles  from  there,  to  see  the  Dai-Butsu,  or  Great 
Buddha,  justly  regarded  as  one  of  the  great  monu- 
ments of  the  world.  It  is  a  bronze  statue  of  Buddha, 
sitting  on  a  stone  seat  some  six  feet  high.  The  statue 
seated  is  fifty  feet  in  height,  made  of  bronze  plates 
brazed  together,  hollow  inside,  and  so  large  that  it 
contains  a  good-sized  temple  and  a  stairway  leading 
up  to  the  head.  It  is  ninety-seven  feet  in  circum- 
ference and  the  head  is  seventeen  feet  across.  These 
measurements  give  you  an  idea  of  its  immensity. 
When  you  consider  that  this  was  made  in  1238  you 
can  realize  how  far  ahead  of  us  these  people  are  in 
bronze-working.  But  it  is  not  only  unique  in  size 
and  material,  it  is  a  great  work  of  art.  The  brooding 
patience  of  the  figure,  the  beauty  of  the  face,  the  be- 
nignity of  its  expression,  and  the  just  proportions  of 
the  whole,  mark  it  as  one  of  the  world's  masterpieces 
among  colossi. 

That  was  our  last  of  Japan.  It  was  fitting  to  leave 
it  for  the  last,  for  it  is  the  greatest  of  Japan's  ancient 
monuments. 

[288] 


JAPAN. 

Home  was  calling  me  with  a  constantly  increasing 
insistence,  and  I  shortened  my  trip  a  week  because  I 
was  hungry  to  see  again  the  landfall  of  the  greatest 
country  of  all. 

The  best  part  of  going  abroad  is  the  coming  home. 
I  take  the  privilege  of  every  American  to  abuse  my 
own  country,  but  as  soon  as  I  leave  it  I  begin  to 
want  to  get  back.  I  used  to  think  I  should  like  a 
diplomatic  appointment  abroad.  This  trip  has  cured 
me.  I  hope  to  cross  the  sea  again  often  and  see  other 
lands,  for  globe-trotting  becomes  a  habit,  but  nothing 
could  tempt  me  from  America,  save  a  new  trip,  con- 
stant novelty,  scenes  ever  fresh. 

As  I  write  this  on  the  ship  reeling  off  the  miles 
homeward-bound,  my  homesickness  grows.  I  even 
doubt  if  foreign  travel  pays.  I  know  I  shall  feel  dif- 
ferently after  I  have  been  at  home  a  while.  I  shall 
hear  the  sea  calling  mfe,  and  the  sight  of  a  travel- 
book  or  the  picture  of  an  ocean  steamer  will  set  me 
figm*ing  on  another  trip. 


[289] 


CONCI.USION. 

I  am  writing  this  nearly  two  months  after  my  re- 
turn. I  have  had  time  to  forget  many  things,  and 
as  is  usual  with  travel,  the  fatigue,  the  hardship,  the 
disagreeable  things  have  passed  away,  forgotten  al- 
most. 

There  remains  a  long  succession  of  beautiful  pic- 
tures that  will  not  fade,  of  novel  impressions  that 
will  not  vanish,  of  friends  whom  I  shall  not  forget. 

And  now  in  thinking  it  over  I  feel  that  it  was  a 
great  trip,  well  worth  the  trouble  and  expense.  It 
has  exactly  doubled  my  knowledge  of  the  world.  I 
know  now,  pretty  well,  that  half  that  is  most 
alien  to  us.  That  was  worth  while.  I  often  hear 
people  say  that  they  do  not  want  to  go  abroad  till 
they  have  seen  every  part  of  America.  Why?  What 
is  travel  for?  If  you  go  merely  to  enjoy,  to  see 
beautiful  sights,  America  is  full  of  them.  If  you  go 
with  an  open  mind,  with  a  thirst  to  know  the  world 
you  live  in  and  the  people  that  live  in  it,  then  America 

[  290  ] 


CONCLUSION. 


alone  cannot  satisfy  you.  There  are  but  three  cities 
in  this  country  worth  going  out  of  your  way  to  see: 
Boston,  New  York,  and  New  Orleans.  There  was 
another,  but  the  earthquake  destroyed  it,  and  the 
new  San  Francisco  will  be  a  Chicago  or  a  St.  Louis. 
All  the  others  are  alike.  When  you  have  seen  one 
you  have  seen  them  all. 

The  traveler  knows  no  more  of  America  after  he 
has  seen  all  of  them  than  he  did  when  he  had  seen 
one,  for  they  are  all  American;  that  expresses  it  all. 

There  are  wonderful  scenic  beauties,  too,  but  the 
Yosemite,  the  Yellowstone  and  the  Grand  Canon 
are  not  essential  to  a  knowledge  of  the  world.  I  am 
not  urging  anyone  else  to  give  them  up  for  a  trip  to 
Europe,  but  I  prefer  foreign  travel  for  the  education 
it  gives,  the  broadened  outlook,  the  greater  knowl- 
edge of  that  curious  animal,  Man. 

I  am  not  urging  anyone  to  go  abroad.  It  is  a 
matter  of  taste,  but  I  find  a  generally  erroneous  idea 
of  the  cost  of  foreign  travel.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
America  is  the  most  expensive  country  in  the  civil- 
ized world  to  travel  in.  I  can  do  Europe  in  an  auto- 
mobile cheaper  than  I  can  travel  by  rail,  sight-seeing, 
in  this  country,  and  far  more  comfortably,  and  in- 

[291] 


THE    FAR    EAST    TODAY. 

stead  of  vast  stretches  of  endless  monotony,  vapid, 
wearisome,  you  have  a  new  picture  at  every  turn  of 
the  road,  a  new  outlook  on  human  life,  a  new  treasure 
for  your  memory  when  the  trip  is  over. 

I  am  often  asked  if  I  still  prefer  America  and 
Americans — a  very  absurd  question.  Every  man 
prefers  his  own  country,  his  own  people.  But  no 
man  knows  America  who  knows  no  other  country. 
A  man  who  had  never  seen  but  one  horse  would  hardly 
be  called  a  judge  of  horseflesh.  It  takes  a  knowl- 
edge of  other  countries,  a  standard  of  comparison, 
to  justly  appraise  our  own.  We  learn  then  our 
virtues  and  our  faults.  It  seems  to  me  the  ideal 
race  would  be  composite.  If  I  were  to  make  such  a 
race  I  would  start  with  the  honesty,  the  industry 
and  the  temperance  of  the  Chinese.  That  would 
make  a  good  foundation  for  racial  character.  I 
would  add  the  courtesy  and  self-control  of  the  Japan- 
ese. Take  a  little,  not  too  much,  of  the  frugality, 
the  wit  and  the  artistic  sense  of  the  French.  The 
stability  and  balance  I  would  get  from  the  Germans, 
the  tenacity  of  purpose,  the  holdfastness,  from  the 
English.  And  then  I  would  take  from  my  own 
people  the  energy,  the  mitiative,  the  ingenuity,  the 

[292] 


CONCLUSION 


driving-power,  and  above  all  as  the  crown,  the  saving 
quality,  the  American  sense  of  humor,  that  delight- 
ful, intangible  quality  of  which  we  have  almost  a 
monopoly. 

Possibly  in  the  fullness  of  time  that  composite 
may  be  attained  here,  but  at  present  we  are  amal- 
gamating the  vices  of  other  nations  along  with  their 
virtues,  and  the  composite  is  far  from  ideal  yet. 

It  seems  to  me  that  foreign  travel  is  helping  Amer- 
ica, absurdly  as  many  Americans  travel.  We  re- 
turn with  a  different  outlook  on  life,  with  a  juster 
conception  of  where  we  succeed  and  where  we  fail, 
with  ideas  that  bear  fruit  in  the  betterment  of  Amer- 
ica, and  most  of  us  return  more  truly  Americans. 


THE  END. 


[293] 


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